


Here We Are, Where The Earth Begins

by lockettxs



Series: Treasure [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band), ATEEZ Cinematic Universe
Genre: (But Not A Corpse), ATEEZ Storyline, Accidental Child Acquisition (Temporary), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Birds of a Feather, Broken Promises, Bugs & Insects, Canon Rewrite, Desecration of a tomb, Fictional ATEEZ Members, Found Family, Gender Dysphoria, Innuendo, Loss of Identity, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Only Focal Relationships Are Tagged, Pining, Pirates, Plot, Strained Friendships, Trans Choi Jongho, Trans Jeong Yunho, Trans Kim Hongjoong, Trans Male Character, canon interpretation, tomb raiding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29861544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lockettxs/pseuds/lockettxs
Summary: Kim Hongjoong is the captain of a group of nomadic rogues, travellers who have gone from world-to-world. In the time they've been travelling, their goal has become obscured, and his crew has begun to forget what has driven them so far in the first place. Lacking purpose, and facing disputes among one another, Hongjoong risks losing his entire crew--that is until they're offered a deal by a mysterious figure; retrieve some mysterious treasure in exchange for whatever they want.However, he may find that he’s gotten more than he bargained for.Disclaimer: This is not RPF, this is an interpretation of the fictional version of ATEEZ as presented in their MVS and other work in an attempt to create a plot to tie elements of the story together. Please bear that in mind while reading.
Relationships: Choi Jongho & Jung Wooyoung, Choi San & Jeong Yunho, Choi San & Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho & Jung Wooyoung, Jung Wooyoung & Kim Hongjoong, Jung Wooyoung & Song Mingi, Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong & Park Seonghwa
Series: Treasure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2207142
Comments: 24
Kudos: 23





	1. This Was A Home Once

**Author's Note:**

> 17/03/21: Finally got my hands on the diary version of the new album, so this fic has undergone several edits to fit with the new lore. 
> 
> 05/03/21: Same disclaimer again, this is NOT RPF. This is based on the fictional characters of the same names as the group which unfortunately do not have a tag yet :( As such, I've taken the personalities and backstories of these characters and used them, plus some of my own headcanons, since these characters are, again, fictional, and not the real ATEEZ. I haven't decided on any romantic ships as of yet, so we'll see what happens as the characters develop through the story--any romantic relationships that do develop between characters are not meant to reflect the real people of the same name (I feel like I'm going to be saying this a lot haha). Basically, all this is to say, don't expect details of these characters to reflect details of the real ATEEZ (from now on referred to as realteez) and don't expect the relationship dynamics and backgrounds to reflect realteez. Instead, personalities and relationships are based on those established during FEVER.
> 
> Now that that's out of the way, hope you enjoy the fic! This will be the first installment in an incredibly long series, but this story in itself should be mostly self-contained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17/03/21: Minor edits made for FEVER Part.2 lore

Hongjoong _needed_ to leave. He needed to _get out._ Literally do absolutely fucking anything to escape the...the absolutely everything that was being holed up in some way-too-fucking-warm old building with his dearest, closest friends, his family, the loves of his life, his reasons for living. He loved them so much, enough that staying in some muggy, dingy, old monastery with them all of the time made him want to kill them. Lovingly. Yunho said he should think positive.

 _“I am positive I am going to fucking throttle you if you say another fucking word to me,”_ he was pretty sure had been his response.

It wasn’t so much that it was hot, because it wasn’t _that_ hot--not really. It was just. Warm. Too cold to strip down to just a shirt, but too hot to wear a jacket. And it was the worst thing he had ever experienced in his life. Ever. Not even the tile floors had the courtesy to be nice and cool, no, instead they were this strange, warm, cold, weird, clammy temperature. Like the floor had a fever.

It didn’t help that he had to run himself a bath in--you guessed it--painfully lukewarm water three times a day because they’d been much too far away from society for there to be any hygienic way to deal with the monthly inconvenience. Not even the bath had the common decency to be cold. He was used to putting up with bad situations, but he was sweaty, perpetually uncomfortable, and dysphoric far more often than necessary and whoever of those bastards had decided that camping out there had even been a good idea to start with.

Oh right, he had. So he couldn’t even blame anyone else.

See, the problem with a life of piracy was that sometimes, if you screwed up, you had to take your riches and lay low until the authorities decided that it was costing more to track you down than what you had taken in the first place. Which, this time, had turned out to be little more than some pretty jewelry and _maybe_ a couple of diamonds. He was less convinced the Cartier bracelet was worth it each day.

He sunk below the surface of his lukewarm bath so that the water obscured the sound of the kids arguing in the courtyard.

Something about cooking, or ingredients--a useless debate, because Seonghwa was already in the kitchen, which any of them would’ve realised if they hadn’t been too busy yelling at one another to hear the clamouring of pots and pans.

At least it would be dark soon. And with dark came cold.

 _“Notorious band of eight pirates,”_ the news had hailed them. He didn’t _feel_ very notorious at that moment. He felt like someone who was going to murder his closest friends if he didn’t get to stretch his legs soon. In two words: stir crazy.

The generic debate sounds, became rough scuffling sounds, and he wondered if it would really be so bad to just let them at it. Maybe if they beat each other up real good then they would realise that they didn’t like being beaten up, and they would get over this fucking dispute. But then again, the last time they’d gone at each other they hadn’t spoken for months and he was pretty sure it had taken a near-death experience for them to get anywhere near close to making up.

The stupid lukewarm bathwater left him feeling hot and slightly sticky, but at least he was clean enough to run a towel quickly over his body without looking, then throw on a baggy shirt (stolen from Mingi) and a pair of shorts (his own, at least, as far as he could remember). He was aware that he didn’t look particularly threatening. He didn’t particularly care.

When he looked down from the open hallway, the scene that was presented from the courtyard was that of Wooyoung and Jongho at each others throats, a vague attempt by Mingi to hold the youngest back, while Yeosang looked on, brows raised in what appeared to be mild, beautiful, amusement. Ah, so Wooyoung deserved it.

Hongjoong cleared his throat and the party of four turned to look at him. “What part of staying quiet and laying low don’t you understand?”

Wooyoung started.

“Don’t—” Hongjoong held up a palm. “If you’re going to get into fights, you do it quietly or not at all, understood?”

“Yes hyung.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Mingi saluted him. Hongjoong rolled his eyes. By the time he’d managed to get to ground level, the tension between the four of them had eased significantly. And so had Hongjoong’s annoyance. Maybe because the sun had begun to set, maybe because as much as they pissed him off, he still loved those fuckers--either way he was thankful for the decrease in blood pressure; it eased the lower body cramping that he very much preferred to ignore, for a start.

“What got you so riled up, anyway?”

Yeosang and Wooyoung exchanged a glance, something which was never a good sign. “It doesn’t matter,” Yeosang said at last, with a gentle smile.

“No, tell me.” Hongjoong quirked an eyebrow.

Wooyoung bit his lip. Silence. Like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

_“Jung Wooyoung.”_

“I _may_ have implied that say, _if,_ perhaps _hypothetically_ Istartedamutiny you would _maybe_ have deserved it.”

“I’m _sorry?”_ Hongjoong choked. “How did you get from arguing about spices to mutiny?”

“We’ve run out of paprika, and Wooyoung thinks we need more,” Yeosang supplied.

“But you said not to leave.” Jongho folded his arms. “So Wooyoung said that your rules were stupid and oppressive and that if he started a mutiny you’d deserve it for forcing us to stay here all the time.”

“In an affectionate way, though,” Wooyoung said, when Hongjoong turned his gaze on him.

“And none of you thought to actually, y’know, _ask_ me?”

Silence.

“Wooyoung, speak to me later. After we eat I am going out to buy paprika, since it’s such a worry to you.”

“Do you not trust us to go—”

“We’ll talk _later_.”

Wooyoung was lucky that they went back so far. Lucky that he could forgive him so easily--that he could tell what shit he did and didn’t mean. But _they went back so far._ Wooyoung should _know._

“Is this a bad time to mention that Seonghwa-hyung and I made soup?” The five of them turned to see San illuminated by the light of candles from the dining room, a nightly ritual to make them feel at least a little more at home. He coughed. “Well, we made soup.”

* * *

“You _really_ pissed Hongjoong-hyung off,” Yunho said, leaning back against the brick wall of their room--some high-domed old dormitory area--or something. “By the sounds of things, at least.”

Wooyoung turned his head from where he lay on a pile of their coats just so that he could make a face.

Yunho sighed.

Of course he’d take their hyung’s side. It had always been Hongjoong, Seonghwa and Yunho together. As three. And then Wooyoung. Wooyoung was the stray cat they’d picked up off the street and decided to clean up and adopt, and that was how they treated him. They loved him. They didn’t entirely trust him.

“I just think—” he hesitated, Yunho would probably feed back everything he said to their hyungs. “I just think that we’ve been here for a month already, we didn’t really take that much. And honestly aren’t we harder to find if we move around?”

Yunho hummed. The silence he left them both in was almost unbearable; it was his most annoying habit, in Wooyoung’s opinion. He’d just leave these pregnant gaps in conversation or arguments, and you’d scramble to fill them and then you’d say something stupid. Wooyoung bit his tongue.

Silence.

The silence continued.

More silence.

“Are you thinking or have you fallen asleep?” Wooyoung caved. It was impossible not to. Yunho laughed.

“You’ve got to try not to fight.”

“It’s not just me—”

“I know, I know.” Yunho sighed. “I hate being trapped here just as much as you, okay? I doubt even Hongjoong-hyung wants to be here.”

“Then why don’t we just leave?”

Yunho sighed again. So many sighs. “I’ll speak to him.”

Wooyoung raised his eyebrows. “Like really speak to him? Really really? Because he’ll actually _listen_ to you. He only humours me. We both know that.”

Yunho shook his head, a useless gesture when they could each tell when the other was being dishonest. Wooyoung wasn’t under the misapprehension that his hyungs didn’t care about him or anything stupid like that--he wasn’t some angsty teenager with unreasonable hangups: he was simply a realist. And in reality he knew that Hongjoong very rarely took him seriously. He wasn’t gonna get a complex about it. As far as he was concerned, it was another annoying quirk of the older; one that was easy enough to circumvent if he just asked Yunho or Seonghwa to be his mouthpiece.

“Anyway—” Wooyoung sat up— “I’m sick of sulking in here, I’m gonna go and pace around the courtyard another fifty times.”

Yunho laughed. “Have fun. I’m going to go to bed--oh!” Wooyoung paused. “Ah, nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, you go have fun with your pacing around.”

* * *

Pros and cons list of civilisation. Pros: well-lit (for the most part), vendors who’d gladly sell their entire stock of sanitary products in exchange for a couple of diamonds no questions asked (goodbye, lukewarm baths), street food, the gentle chatter of people around was the nice, soothing white-noise kind and not the kind that indicated your asshole friends were arguing again. Cons: constant risk that someone was going to figure out that _he_ was the notorious ‘pirate king’ that the authorities were looking for, realise that they could probably take him single handed, and then kill him where he stood. Hongjoong pulled the scarf tighter around his face.

He knew he shouldn’t have come alone, but he also knew that it was his fault they were in this situation in the first place--if anyone was going to get ambushed and captured he’d much rather it was him alone. Risk and reward was his responsibility. And he fucked it up. Seriously. The best he could do was make it right.

Hakim’s shop was down by the waterfront. Hongjoong had _told_ his crew they were there for repairs after scouting ahead and bartering half their earnings for the service. In reality they were there for more of a Theseus’ ship sort of deal--Hakim would ‘repair’ the vessel. With entirely new material. And an entirely new paint job. And if the authorities knocked? Well, Hakim ‘didn’t know’ that the boat he was repairing belonged to a group of pirates. After all, no one had ever explicitly told him that.

The man opened the door just wide enough for Hongjoong to slip through into the lit boathouse. He scanned the room a second, making sure there was no one hiding around there before removing his scarf. Then, he turned his eyes to his ship.

She shone with fresh varnish, clearly watertight, and the wood used to replace the areas he’d instructed was of evidently high quality (Hakim had put their payment to good use, then). Her sails, too, were newly replaced with fresh canvas, and he could see that the rigging also had been replaced entirely with higher quality, sturdier rope.

“I’ve taken good care of your Zaya.”

“I can see that.” Hongjoong smiled. “Here—” he handed Hakim the last of the diamonds. “You’ve earned it. Once I’m done loading up the cargo I want you to take her down and dock her under the name Fayiz Karimi; after that, you won’t ever have to think about me again.”

Hakim huffed. “That will be pretty difficult; you have left quite the impression.”

Hongjoong laughed as he boarded, haphazardly, dropping the bags of preserves and down the hatch. Each one landed with a satisfactory thud atop of the others. Peering down, the pile wasn’t pretty, but he’d just have to deal with organising it all later. Sometimes he really wished that pulling rank actually worked on Seonghwa. He closed and locked the hatch, revelling in the lack of a screech--in how well-oiled the damn thing was now, then began to make his way back.

“You know,” Hakim called up to him, “next time you might want to make sure no one snaps any pictures of your vessel.”

Hongjoong laughed. “So, you saw.”

Hakim shrugged.

Hongjoong hopped over the side of the boat, landing next to him. “Don’t worry, this won’t happen again—”

“--you have learnt your lesson, I know.” Hakim pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are a young man, an intelligent man--why the life of crime, hm?”

Hongjoong averted his gaze.

“It is complicated? There is more than what you tell me? I understand, but do not throw your life away. You have so much left to live.”

Same shit out of a different mouth. He’d heard it so many times before. He knew Hakim meant well--hell, he knew everyone who said that sort of thing probably meant well, but that didn’t make their words any less grating. They knew fuck shit about him, about his crew. Still, he smiled, he nodded. “Thanks.”

Hakim cracked open the door again to let him out. Thank fuck. No more guidance-counsellor conversations directed at entirely the wrong person (if anyone needed them, it was Wooyoung.) And they could leave soon. Get away from this exhausting world where everyone was always in their business about every single little thing and finally—

The streetlights were out.

They hadn’t been out before. Hongjoong stopped. He’d walked about ten metres away from Hakim’s boathouse before realising--he’d wager that he was quick enough that he could run the ten metres back to it before anyone got him, but he wouldn’t wager that Hakim would be any help. He was only five metres from the other path, but they’d probably have already blocked that. No, the boathouse was his best shot. Getting in would have to be some sort of delay tactic--possibly he could dive into the water and swim out--or hide away until any assailants decided he had escaped and then leave after them--or—

“Kim Hongjoong.”

He narrowed his eyes. About another five metres ahead of him in the darkness, he could just about make out the silhouette of a person. They seemed to be alone, but he knew better than to assume. They tossed a USB drive down onto the dirt pavement. Two years ago, a masked man in a dark hat had approached him similarly, handed him something just as ominous.

“What’s this?” Hongjoong looked back up at them.

“An offer.”

“What are you offering me?”

“Gold, eternal life, love, honour, fame—” the figure paused for a moment. “Whatever you dream of.”

“And do what in return?”

They extended a black-gloved hand and pointed at the USB drive. Hongjoong raised his eyebrows. As far as he was concerned, genies didn’t exist. Not in this world. And they certainly wouldn’t use USB drives. But masked men who approached at random, baring interesting gifts...they were certainly real. All too real, and all too likely to be some sort of trap.

“I don’t work for hire,” he said, then turned and started on the clear path away from Hakim’s. Guess he’d be taking the long way back. Strange thing was--even though he didn’t recall picking it up, he still found the USB nestled in his closed fist.

* * *

It was sunrise, and Seonghwa was about ninety nine percent sure that Hongjoong hadn’t slept at all--for a start, he hadn’t returned from his paprika mission until long past midnight, then once he’d made his way back to the room he’d claimed for himself, he--well--he hadn’t. Seonghwa was next door, and he hadn’t heard the door open or close, which he would’ve, because it slammed loud enough to wake him up every time. Also for the argument that he hadn’t even made it back to his room was the fact that Hongjoong was sitting in the courtyard with his laptop, cross legged on one of the benches.

He was dressed in real clothes again, though, so that meant that he had managed to get the supplies he’d been looking for.

“Hongjoong?” He called out. Blank. Okay, great, he’d reached the ‘unresponsive’ phase of sleep deprivation. “Kim Hongjoong? Hongjoong? Hongjoong-ah?”

Finally he looked up. God, he looked awful. Bags under his eyes, bad skin, red around the tear ducts from staring at a screen for however long. He leant back and reached one arm out to stretch and yawn, the other kept protectively around the computer. “G--ood morning, Seonghwa.”

Seonghwa sat down next to him, leaning over--partially to look at the screen, partially as an excuse to rest his head on Hongjoong’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, nothing—” Hongjoong shrugged him off, and closed the laptop. “Code-breaking. Dull stuff.”

“Code-breaking? Why?”

“Interest,” he said. Seonghwa didn’t believe that. While their captain was the type liable to become so consumed by new hobbies as to forget to eat, drink or sleep—

_“Code-breaking?”_

Hongjoong choked. “Why are you so shocked exactly?”

“It’s just the last time I checked, you were very much an arts kid.”

“There’s a lot of overlap between music theory and code, actually—”

Seonghwa shook his head. “Too early in the morning. You _just_ told me it was dull stuff, anyway.”

“Dull to you, not to me.”

“Your cracks are showing, Hongjoong.”

“Shut up.”

Seonghwa laughed. A pleasant quiet settled over the two of them as they sat, the sun still rising to the point where it would begin to spill into the courtyard. It was nice while it was still early and the air was nice and cool. Seonghwa suspected that may be why Hongjoong had begun to transition into a creature of the night lately: for the cool air. Even he had to admit that the humid heat was unpleasant.

“Wooyoung-ah asked me when you were going to speak to him.”

“Hm? Oh--oh! I forgot--shit. He’ll probably be grateful for that anyway.”

Seonghwa wondered whether he should mention what else Wooyoung had said to him. Or what Yunho had said to him. Or San’s relay of the argument he had crouched behind a dilapidated column to listen in on, unnoticed, just so that he could inform him that what had been relayed to Hongjoong was far from the expanse of the conversation. Conversation being, of course, a very generous term.

Seonghwa took his role as quartermaster seriously. He was the master of the quarters. And he knew everything.

“We can leave today, anyway,” Hongjoong said. Any angsting immediately slipped Seonghwa’s mind as he turned his full attention on his companion, who had turned his head away with a coy smile.

“So that’s what you were doing all night.”

“What? Did you think I was off gallivanting with local women or something?”

Seonghwa laughed far too loud to play off. “Two years. This is the first time you’ve used the word ‘gallivanting’ _or_ indicated any interest in women.”

“The idea is _that_ ridiculous to you?”

Seonghwa raised his eyebrows. “Yes!”

“Amazing. You’re my right hand. You’re meant to trust me the _most_ —”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be your right hand, Hongjoong.”

“Disgusting—” Hongjoong stood up, laughing. “Filthy, gross—” Seonghwa started laughing, too. “--get your mind _out_ of the gutter, please. I will not have filth on my ship.”

“You--you’ve called me filth twice.”

“For emphasis.” Hongjoong made an act of fanning himself with his free hand. “ _Anyway,_ we can leave today. If you--if the others want to.”

“Good.” Seonghwa smiled. “It’s about time.”

* * *

“Zaya was that damaged?” San cocked his head to the side.

Hongjoong had prepared for that question. “It seemed like the damage was more severe than we thought, but we’re good to go now--she’s all fixed up.”

Still, San frowned and gave the hull of the boat a gentle pat. “Poor girl, they’ve stripped away all the pretty drawings we gave you.”

It was true that Hongjoong felt bad about having to do that, but every little detail they’d painted onto their ship had been captured in high definition--it was safer that she lose the decoration. At least for now. He must’ve apologised to her a million times before he left her with Hakim the first time. He’d also apologised to his crew--of course, only when he knew that they were asleep and couldn’t hear him. He had his reasons for going behind their back.

They could leave this place behind, now, though, and hopefully leave behind any need to ever fully explain why he’d done what he’d done. Or even what exactly he’d done to their beloved Zaya.

Once they were all onboard and Hongjoong had successfully avoided being enlisted to organise the shit he’d dumped the night before, Jongho pulled back the plank and untethered them from where they were held. “Poor winds,” he said. Hongjoong sighed.

“San-ah, could you go and switch on the engine?” He called over to where San stood on the other side of the boat, looking back at the town. San nodded, then made his way below deck. The way things were, wind or not, it was a good day to sail. The weather was nice, and the river they’d have to traverse looked nice, too. The sunset was especially nice. All amber and gold, spilling out over the world around them.

“Hyung?”

Hongjoong turned at the sound of Wooyoung’s voice. Jongho tensed. For fuck’s sake.

“What?” Wooyoung turned his attention to their youngest. “Do you really think I came here to start shit for no reason?”

“That’s what you’re doing right now.” Jongho folded his arms. Hongjoong wondered whether he should say something to stop the two from going at it again.

“Oh, only because tough man Jongho likes to act like a scared little kid whenever scary Wooyoung is around as if I even have the power to hurt you. Except, no. It’s only because hyung is here, isn’t it?”

“Wooyoung-ah—”

“No, because you always pretend like you’re tough but you still want to be babied by the hyungs, don’t you?”

“What?” Jongho laughed. Hongjoong raised his eyebrows. The last time he’d showed anything near parental or, hell, even brotherly concern towards Jongho he’d received a long rant about how he wasn’t that much younger and that he wanted to be treated like the rest of the group. “Is baby Wooyoungie jealous?”

Yeosang had drifted over and now watched with tight lips. The rest of the ship had gone quiet.

“Jealous?” Wooyoung grabbed Yeosang’s arm. “Hey Yeosang, would you say that I’m jealous of Jongho?”

“I—” Yeosang shot a panicked glance at Hongjoong.

“Wooyoung-ah, please—”

“No, no. I’m not going to calm down. Because it’s been two years and we’ve been stuck together all of that time, and Jongho still acts like I’m some sort of menace, like we don’t really even know each other. Do you know how that feels?”

“You’re the one who suggested mutiny as a good solution of running out of paprika!” Jongho protested.

“Stop twisting my words!”

At some point the engine must’ve started because the boat was moving and now San and Yunho were watching. “Hey, hey.” Hongjoong stepped between them.

“What I said was that you don’t really care about us, and you know what? I stand by that.” Wooyoung shoved Hongjoong in the shoulder, forcing him back a pace. “You keep us cooped up for a month and a half without telling us why this time is different to the last ones, you hide things from us, you ignore us, you dismiss everything we say.”

Shit. “We’re leaving now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, well maybe now is too late!”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Hongjoong reached out. “Wooyoung-ah—”

Wooyoung slapped his hand away. “Don’t fucking call me that. Why do we have to put up with this, hm?” Wooyoung looked around. Everyone had gathered around now. Mingi, trying not to make eye contact with either of them. Seonghwa, biting his lip. There wasn’t shit that Wooyoung didn’t vent at Seonghwa--there was no way he hadn’t known--and he hadn’t warned him. “You always talk about how we’ve got to stick together, but why the fuck does that matter? Sticking together is miserable. All we do is fight. Why are any of us even still here?”

Not this. Not again. He wasn’t going to let those bastards go again.

_“Gold, eternal life, love, honour, fame—whatever you dream of.”_

That’s what they’d said. Whatever he dreamed of. What if he dreamed of keeping their crew together? Could that work? That could work. This could work. He squared himself.

“Because,” Hongjoong said, “I have a job for us, if nothing else.”


	2. Labyrinthine Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17/03/21: Moderate changes made to be compliant with FEVER Part.2 lore

Hongjoong’s new hobby made a lot more sense to Seonghwa once he cracked open his laptop again to show them the contents of the USB drive. “Coded instructions,” he said, at last. And if this had been the plan all along, why the hell hadn’t he just _told_ him? How was he supposed to trust their captain if he kept keeping secrets? Or maybe it hadn’t been the plan all along. Maybe it had been some last ditch attempt to give the kids some sort of distraction to stop them from fighting. Either way, Seonghwa didn’t like the lies. And if it did end up being the latter, he’d rather not be there when they found out.

Mingi leant down to look at the screen. He was the best of them at numbers--easily the smartest in general, too, if Seonghwa had to bet. Wooyoung sat on a stool in the corner, still simmering. If Seonghwa knew him, though, he’d be back to his usual self within the next ten minutes or so; it took a lot for his anger to persist.

“And the reward for doing this is anything we want?” Yunho asked, joining the crowd around the screen. Hongjoong nodded. San whistled.

Seonghwa cleared his throat. “How do we know this isn’t some sort of prank?”

“No one would go to all this effort for just a prank.”

“That’s a logical fallacy,” Yeosang said, “ _I_ would do this sort of thing just for fun. Prank not needed.” The rest quieted for a moment before remembering that Yeosang had been some sort of kid genius before he’d run away with them.

“It could also be a trap,” Wooyoung said at last. He’d untensed a little. Good, that meant his curiosity was finally starting to overpower his outburst.

“That,” Hongjoong said, “is why we take precautions. Besides, there are eight of us, and only one of them—”

“--as far as we know,” Seonghwa was hasty to add. From what Hongjoong had told him the encounter sounded almost supernatural and, while the world they were in at the moment was mostly mundane, he still found himself convinced the offer was legit. Still, better safe than sorry. And what kind of mystical creature used USB sticks to communicate?

“It could be a Caesar cipher,” Mingi offered. Hongjoong nodded, then leant out of the way, giving him access to the keyboard. All it took was a few clicks in a browser tab to open up a page with a blank white box. From there, Mingi copied and pasted the code from the file Hongjoong had open, then instructed the page to run whatever program it used--and out came—

“To be honest, that looks even more confusing,” Wooyoung said, wedging himself in between Seonghwa and Yeosang.

“There could be multiple levels of encryption,” Jongho said.

“Or it might _not_ be a Caesar cipher.” Mingi shrugged. “That’s just the most obvious one to run first.”

“Hang on—”

“Wooyoung-ah—”

“No, look—” Wooyoung pointed at an area of the screen where the text seemed to look plausibly like--well, like coordinates, now that he pointed it out. But Wooyoung actually had his finger on an area of text, buried amongst the nonsense, that looked like it could plausibly be a place name.

“Hey—” Hongjoong grinned at him— “you might have something there.”

“See, I am worth listening to sometimes,” he grumbled, clearly pleased to be praised. Seonghwa snorted.

“I still think we should run it through some other standard ciphers,” Mingi said. “Just in case.”

“Okay, but—” Wooyoung converted himself to full brat mode, and grabbed the laptop from off the table— “you do it with me, so I can see your face when you’re forced to conclude I was right all along.

“Oh, I’ll bet whatever our winnings are.”

Mingi took the computer from his hands and set it down on the other side of the table. “Isn’t that just whatever you want in the world?”

“Yeah, you can have two of whatever you want most.”

Hongjoong shook his head. “Unbelievable. I’m going to my quarters.” 

“Night, captain.” Wooyoung offered him a jaunty little wave as he walked off. And thank _god_ for that. The tension had been beginning to give Seonghwa a headache.

“If none of us have work to do, we should cook,” Jongho said at last.

“Yes, make brain food for the two smartest people on board,” Wooyoung said from where he was otherwise using Mingi as a headrest while he watched him work.

“Come _on,”_ Jongho said, hovering at the door to the galley.

Seonghwa sighed and followed--he was aware that he really shouldn’t, as the eldest, let their youngest boss him around, but it was sometimes just not _worth_ resisting.

“What are you gonna ask for?” Yunho said as the door to the galley closed behind them, leaving the five of them in one, far too cramped space. “I wonder if they could help my brother.”

Seonghwa frowned. He knew enough to know that Yunho’s brother wasn’t in a good way; he didn’t want him to get his hopes up--not that he was dumb enough to think he would. Yunho was generally positive, yes, but positive in such a way that reality still couldn’t get him down. He believed in ‘eventually.’ Didn’t put time limits on good things happening.

“I’ll probably just ask to not have consequences for our actions ever again, ” Yeosang said. “I hated that old monastery.”

San hummed in agreement. “I think I’d ask for infinite money or something--just so that we don’t have to worry about when we move around or where . How about you, hyung?”

Seonghwa started. “Me? I guess a break would be nice.”

Yunho laughed. “You sound like an old man.”

“If I’m an old man, then you have to respect me.”

“Jongho?” San said, prodding the youngest in the shoulder as he sorted through the ingredients. “What are you gonna ask for?”

“Can’t we just cook?”

* * *

The clock in the bottom right hand corner of the screen told Mingi that he’d been working long past when it was a reasonable hour to sleep. Plates of half finished food that the others had set out for them sat cold next to them at the table, and Wooyoung snored against his shoulder. “Well, looks like you were right, Woo-ong.”

No response.

Mingi sighed. He could either wake Wooyoung, sit there and let him sleep, or carry him to his room. He wasn’t interested in behaving like the bad-boy protagonist of a romance drama, even if he had to admit his past had set him up for it, so he prodded Wooyoung in the cheek. “Wooyoung.”

Nope.

“Woo- _young.”_

Nada.

“Bastard,” he said, at last, pinching his cheek. _That_ did the trick.

“Ouch!”

“You were right. Happy?”

Wooyoung was still rubbing his cheek. “Did you have to pinch so hard?”

Mingi shrugged. “You were out cold.”

“Some friend you are. I am very carry-able.” Wooyoung pouted. Mingi raised his eyebrows. “I saw Seonghwa-hyung and Yunho carry Hongjoong-hyung back to his room once.”

“That was different--Hongjoong was drunk off his ass and, that aside, there were _two_ of them. You, on the other hand, are still capable of walking.”

Wooyoung huffed. “I’m guessing you don’t want to tuck me in either.”

Mingi went to punch him in the arm, only for Wooyoung to dodge so far he fell off the bench. “I have to steer the ship.”

“Hey!” Wooyoung protested from where he lay on the floor as Mingi took quick note of the coordinates and stood up. “You’re gonna leave me here?”

“Yep.” He said, but as Wooyoung laughed he couldn’t help but soften and offer him a hand. Wooyoung was scrappy and a menace, but nothing could erase that they’d known each other since before they could spell their own names, and nothing could erase that he would always love the sound of his laugh. No matter what happened. 

* * *

The city itself (if you could call it that) was in ruins. Buildings half collapsed, walls crumbling away, streets filled with stone and rubble; everything was half-buried within the remains of some long-ago landslide that had supposedly decimated the area. Back in the sixties it had apparently been a bustling metropolis, now it was condemned, waiting for the demolition crew to finally show up and tear everything down.

Something about the air around them felt heavy--even under the midday sun, Jongho felt cold disembarking from the boat. Cold and...watched. This was the kind of place he’d call a ghost town. No doubts about it.

Hongjoong cleared his throat. “If we want to cover the entirety of the coordinates before nightfall, we’re going to need to split up. I don’t expect anyone to want to go alone, so I suggest we split into three teams. ” They’d already agreed that Seonghwa would stay behind to watch the ship. After all, he was the only one Hongjoong actually trusted to look after Zaya, and he’d been just as unnerved by the state of the place that Jongho had. Jongho was beginning to wish that he’d asked to stay behind with him.

“Yeosang, Mingi--you two together. You’ll take the north-western corner.”

“Got it.” Yeosang took one of the hastily drawn maps that Hongjoong offered him. All the map really did was illustrate landmarks and where they were in relation to the boat, but that was all they needed.

“Yunho and San; you two will also be a pair. I want you to go south-west.” He handed them their map, too. Then that meant—

“Wooyoung, Jongho; you two are coming with me, understood? We’ll cover the eastern half.”

Jongho took a deep breath. He’d hoped that Hongjoong would match Wooyoung with San or Mingi--literally _anyone_ else would’ve been better. Obviously their hyung had decided that it was time for them to be put in . That didn’t mean Jongho had to like it.

“Are we clear?” Hongjoong asked. They all nodded like the good little crewmates they were. “Right, then let’s get started.”

Jongho and Wooyoung followed.

“So,” Wooyoung said, “just to check again, we’re looking for…”

“A book.”

“Okay.”

“And before you ask,” Hongjoong said, “ _yes,_ I’m certain. The first code on the drive was just that mirrored and in arabic. It was relatively easy to figure out once I realised it was reversed.”

“There could be books in every single building here.”

“We’re looking for books written in Korean in buildings with blue doors. The text was very specific in it--”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

Jongho frowned. Would it kill Wooyoung to be a little nicer to their hyung every once in a while?

“Hyung,” Wooyoung whined, “Jongho’s judging me again.”

Hongjoong sighed. “When are you two going to let each other breathe?”

“I’m not even doing anything.” Jongho mumbled, though he was well aware that it was probably useless to try and defend himself. As far as Hongjoong was concerned, it took two to fight, and he was a part of that pair whether he liked it or not. All he wanted was the eight of them together and, as a nice extra bonus, Hongjoong-hyung’s validation. He didn’t want to be the kind of person who begged for it the way Wooyoung did--who made himself into some whining child just for the barest smidge of attention and affection.

“You two--what are you even fighting over?” Hongjoong pushed open the door of their first stop with ease--whoever had last been there hadn’t even locked up. “I _know_ it’s not seasoning.”

“Since when did you become Seonghwa-hyung?”

“Since Seonghwa-hyung stayed behind with Zaya, now, spill.” Hongjoong crouched in front of a bookshelf, scanning the bottom. “It’ll be written in Korean, by the way. That’s how we’ll know.”

Jongho started on the top shelf.

“Jongho needs to loosen up more.” Wooyoung flipped through a book that had been discarded on the coffee table. “He’s so uptight, mega-polite these days, acting as if he doesn’t--didn’t used to act just like the rest of us.”

He tensed.

“He punched my best fucking friend in the face despite being a year younger than him, you know. I just don’t get why he—” Wooyoung turned to face him directly— “why you’re so high and mighty _now,_ all of a sudden. What changed?”

He should’ve just told them all the same time Hongjoong or Yunho had. _“Oh, by the way, I have also transed my gender.”_ He knew that. If he hadn’t just clammed up in shock the moment Hongjoong mentioned needing to drop by a convenience store to grab tampons, then maybe he wouldn’t even _be_ in this situation now. And maybe his hyungs would stop seeming to run out way too soon, marvelling at how the supply always seemed to run low far faster than they expected. But he _liked_ that everyone thought he was cis, and he was glad that Wooyoung still hadn’t counted back enough to realise that Jongho had started being respectful the moment Hongjoong had made it impossible to ignore the fact of his biology.

The way things were now, Wooyoung would probably accuse him of being overly afraid to offend their hyung.

So far only Mingi knew, and that was completely by accident. Jongho didn’t know when the right time was to drop that piece of information into conversation, or even really if he ever wanted to.

“I—” he said—

“Did you see that?” Hongjoong’s eyes were fixed on some point outside of the window.

Jongho and Wooyoung exchanged a look. “See what?”

“I thought I saw someone. I’m going to check it out. If I don’t catch up with you before sundown, I’ll meet you back aboard Zaya.” And with that, he darted away.

“Either that was the worst ploy to get us to talk alone ever, or hyung is losing it,” Wooyoung said.

“I really didn’t see anything, did you?”

* * *

When Yunho looked up, he met with San’s smiling face through the broken window. Usually a delight to see, this time he fell back over himself. “I wasn’t expecting you!”

“We’re a team!”

“I thought you were upstairs, when did you come downstairs?”

“I climbed down outside,” he said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Yunho laughed.

“Anything of interest?”

San shook his head. “Again, no. Beginning to think Wooyoung’s interpretation was completely bogus, but Seonghwa-hyung said Mingi checked it all thoroughly.” San clambered through the opening then, wrapped his arms around Yunho to help him back up. “You’re too tall, y’know?”

Yunho laughed again. “So you’ve said before.”

“And I will keep saying it until you become less tall.”

“You’ll have to wait for me to be old wrinkly grandpa for that so I can start to shrink again.”

“You’ll shrivel up like a prune—” San grinned— “I can’t wait to see.”

“You think we’ll be friends that long?”

“We better be.” San pouted, hooking his arm around Yunho’s to drag him out of the building. “You think I’m ever letting any of you get away from me now that you know so much?”

“We could be lovers instead.” Yunho winked. San laughed. It had been a joke, but Yunho would have to be lying if he said that he’d never considered what it would be like to be with any of the others. After all, two years was a long time to spend around one group of people for almost every hour of the day. It was only by some sort of miracle that he’d never actually developed real feelings for any of them. Not even San.

“I wonder how mission ‘get-along-shirt’ is going,” San said. Ah, Seonghwa’s plan to try and get Wooyoung and Jongho to finally talk, lovingly nicknamed because, for all intents and purposes, that’s what it was.

“Do you think they’ve eaten each other yet?”

“I hope not.” San made a face. “Wooyoung promised he’d cook tonight.”

* * *

The walk to the next point on their journey was made in silence, at first. Silence from Wooyoung was the next phase of his anger; first was the outbursts, then the violence, then the silent treatment. _What changed?_ So much, Wooyoung, but you wouldn’t understand that. You can’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like.

“I know you think I didn’t notice,” Wooyoung said. Jongho went cold--there was no other way to describe it, really, than that old cliche. It was a visceral, heavy, quicksilver-for-blood sort of cold.

“Notice what?”

“You don’t respect Hongjoong-hyung enough to treat him like the rest of us.”

Jongho spluttered. “What?”

“You don’t think he can defend himself? Or what? You got a crush on him or something?”

“A _crush?_ On _hyung?_ You know, some of us are actually loyal to our captain without needing an ulterior motive.”

“I don’t trust you, Jongho.”

“If there’s anyone here who’s untrustworthy, it’s you—”

“Shush!” Wooyoung froze. “I heard something.”

“What?”

Wooyoung rushed off in the direction of a building--mostly intact--across the square.

“Not you as well.” Jongho followed him as best as he could. Thankfully, he’d left the door open behind him, so there was no need for guesswork on which place he’d run into. It was some sort of old office building. Or town hall, maybe? Anyhow, there was some large, fancy looking desk, and broken plastic from what once could have held brochures of some kind. Not the kind of place they were meant to be searching though--after Hongjoong had left them Jongho had taken a few moments to ponder the map before turning it over and realising that it said ‘blue doors’ on the back. Like some sort of puzzle for children.

“Wooyoung?”

No response, but he hadn’t really expected any. He did, however, hear the faint sounds of muffled talking from the floor above. Dust fell down from the ceiling or--no, not dust. Parts of the wooden beams. Trust Wooyoung not to check if it was actually _safe_ to go upstairs--those beams looked like they were more worm than wood. Unfortunately for Jongho, he was too good and responsible to let his idiot suffer the consequences of his actions.

Even the stairs creaked beneath his feet. He swallowed. “Wooyoung?” No response again, which, again, he had anticipated but—

The snap of wood was like the snap of a bone breaking.

That was all he could think.

It was something you heard before you felt, and you felt it in your stomach first.

He wasn’t sure why he ran _up_ the stairs. He felt sick. The sickness didn’t go away even when he clearly saw Wooyoung safe--safe, but surprised--on the other side of an empty room. A room so empty that it was missing half of its floor. And closely, protectively clasped against his side, was the figure of a child, their small hands wound into the fabric of his sweater, head buried in the crook of his arm.

For a second they just stared at each other.

Okay, okay. Jongho took a deep breath. “Wooyoung—”

“I’m not going to jump.”

“Then what _are_ you going to do? Just stand there forever? The ceiling’s too high for you to climb down.” The child wound themselves even deeper into the material of Wooyoung’s sweater, if that was possible, and Jongho caught himself. They were probably scared enough already.

“Go and get the others.”

Jongho thought about the beams and bit his lip. “I don’t think this place will hold--structurally--long enough.” Wooyoung shook his head. “Wooyoung, you have to trust me.”

“What about your—” Wooyoung didn’t need to say it. “If I jump, will you be able to hold us?”

“I have to.” He held his arms out, hoping desperately that he looked reassuring. He’d catch them. He had no other option. Wooyoung shuffled back as far as he could, until he was back up against the wall. Jongho shifted his weight to his good leg. “Wooyoung, you have to trust me, please.” Wooyoung closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then picked up the kid, who promptly buried their head in his neck--divorced from the terror of the situation, it might’ve been cute. 

“Okay, I’m going to jump,” he said.

Oh, how Jongho wished things could happen in in real life. Wooyoung jumped--then, standing in the doorway, he had his arms around him, then his leg and the floor in front of them gave out at the same time. That was his best guess at least. Jongho’s free side was pressed against the door frame as he hissed in pain, his left hand on the remaining area of solid ground, keeping him propped up, his right arm grasped as tight as possible around Wooyoung’s torso.

He pulled him up as carefully as he could, until the three of them were lying back at the top of the stairs, breathing heavy.

“Thank you,” the child said, almost so quiet he didn’t hear. Wooyoung began to laugh.

* * *

Hongjoong bit his fingernails--a bad habit, he knew--if his mother was around, he was sure she’d scold him harshly, whatever it was that mothers did when their sons misbehaved. Two of his bastards were missing. Still. Which had been alright, at first, he’d been the one who lost them to chase after one of those stupid nice-guy fuckers--hat men, surgically masked little bitches (they still hadn’t agreed on what to call those creepy doppelgangers—the name they’d originally been given didn’t seem appropriate given their current career choice.) He hadn’t even worried when he had failed to catch up to them following their planned path. (Yes, it had occurred to him that it seemed odd that none of the houses seemed to have been searched yet, Seonghwa, thanks for asking.) But he was tired and it didn’t take long to give them a once over himself and was it so wrong for him to hope that those two had finally learned to clean up after themselves?

It was more of a concern once he got back to Zaya only to find that they weren’t there either. He had two theories. The first was that the twink in black had got them and they’d have to barter for their release. They still didn’t really _know_ who those people were, but their best guess was some sort of interdimensional vigilante superheroes spreading the good word of song and dance. A pain in the ass, yes, but they’d lived through every encounter yet. The second option was that Wooyoung and Jongho had murdered each other. Which was, to say the least, unideal.

“It’s ten minutes until sundown,” San offered. Unhelpfully.

“ _Thank you,_ San.”

“Didn’t they take flares with them?” Yeosang asked. _Flares?_ They all stared at him. “Did you all really forget that I made you flares to use?”

Hongjoong cleared his throat. “If they’re not back by sundown, we—”

“There they are! Oh--that doesn’t look good.” Yunho winced. Hongjoong followed his gaze. He was right, though, there they were, about fifty metres away. Jongho leaning on Wooyoung for support--ah. Yes, that didn’t look good. But they were also...laughing? Or sobbing? He hoped it was the former. And every once in a while they’d both look back behind them. He shook his head: no use in speculating.

“Mingi-ya, come.”

Hongjoong hopped over the side of the boat, landing in a breakfall, plank be damned. He was too impatient. He needed to give them both a piece of his mind. _Immediately._ He would’ve ran to meet them if not for his captain’s dignity. Mingi was certainly going to have to jog a little to catch up with him.

“Hyung!” Wooyoung called out when they were close enough. “I need you to promise not to be mad.” They stopped a few feet away from each other.

“What the hell did you do this time?”

Wooyoung reached behind him and brought forth a--a child. “Her name is Hala Al-Amin, can she stay with us a while?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write as much of this as I can while I'm still motivated, but I can't promise that updates will always be this frequent since I don't have any sort of schedule. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please leave a comment if you did (those are always nice) or, if you don't have the energy for that, bookmarks, kudos, etc are all great ways of giving writers validation! 
> 
> Also a little authors note: while I was looking for Hakim's name last chapter, I spotted the name Hala below it and read that according to behindthename it means 'Halo around the moon'. I couldn't resist.


	3. All That Glitters Underground

House (boat) rules: clean up after you make dinner, dry immediately after washing, don't leave shoes in the hallway, ‘experiments’ left in the middle of the deck where someone could trip over will be thrown overboard, shower once a week  _ minimum _ , no drinking without permission, fights will be settled shoreside, wear underwear at  _ minimum _ . Amendments: no swearing in front of the kid, no fighting in front of the kid.

Rules that Yeosang had already broken: all of the above, except for the underwear one (did he look like San?) and the one about fighting in front of the kid. That one was easy to keep, too, because Hala seemed to have some sort of calming presence on the crew. He sat cross legged at the stern of the boat, eyes closed, listening to Mingi and Hala engage in mundane chatter as he brushed and plaited her hair. They all spoke child-level Arabic from their time in Morocco, and Hala was a child, so it worked out.

“ _ Oppa,  _ can you say  _ oppa?” _

“Oppa,” Hala repeated. “What does that mean.”

“Big brother.”

“So you’re my  _ oppas?” _

Mingi hummed. 

“Then what’s that--what’s that word you use for the captain—” (it was kind of adorable that she still hadn’t got her head around all of their names)-- “ _ hyung.  _ Does that mean captain?”

“That also means big brother, but from a little brother’s mouth.”

“Ah, I get it.” 

When it was just the three of them, he could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist--just he and Mingi, watching the kid, occasionally exchanging a warm smile when she did something especially sweet. No worries, nothing to fear, nothing to lose. 

It was a pleasant night. They were still tethered at the shore of the city, but there was enough of a breeze that Yeosang could pretend they were moving if he didn’t look too hard, and the boat would always have that reassuring back and forth rock like a cradle. It would be so easy to just lay down underneath the stars and drift off right where he was, boat pun not intended. 

“Hm, Yeosang-oppa?”

Ah, reality calling. Hello, is Kang Yeosang home? He opened his eyes lazily. Hala had moved now, hair done up into--well, into  _ something.  _ Mingi wasn’t a cosmetologist. And she was looking right at him. “Yes?” He said.

“What do you do on the boat?”

“Hm?”

“Mingi-oppa said that he--that he navigates. What do you do?”

“I’m the--I’m the mechanic.” He used the Korean word. “It means I fix things on the go. Sometimes I fix people, too.”

“Like a doctor?”

“More of a first-aider,” Mingi interjected. It had been a while since they’d actually talked about their ‘on-paper-in-theory’ roles aboard the Zaya; Yeosang had almost forgotten that they had them. Didn’t stop him taking some kind of pride in the position he had been given. 

“Hey! How about next time I don’t re-set your finger, hm?” Mingi laughed. Hala stared at them. Ah, right. They’d switched to Korean. “Ah, sorry Hala.”

“What does--does San-oppa do?”

“He...looks ahead,” Yeosang said, taking his time to find the right words for the concept of a scout. The conversation that had resulted in that decision--they hadn’t even been sure they actually  _ needed  _ a scout, but Seonghwa had insisted that San would be the best choice--he had good eyesight and a good memory, and he was likeable. That was the reasoning. Sometimes Yeosang wondered if when Seonghwa said ‘scout’, the word he really meant was ‘spy.’ “He checks places before we go to them.”

Hala nodded. “And Seonghwa-oppa?”

“Is the quartermaster.” Yeosang hadn’t noticed Hongjoong approach. “That means he keeps an eye on the things that I can’t.” He eased himself down next to Yeosang, then flipped open his laptop--the same page of scrambled code, except this time pre-Caesar cipher. “You know,” he mumbled in Korean, “I’d hoped that they’d at least bring the answers back with them, too. Not—” he switched to Arabic— “that it isn’t a delight to have you around, Hala.” He smiled. 

The girl shuffled over and peered at the screen of the computer, brown eyes wide. “What’s that?”

“It’s meant to be instructions for a job we’re working on, but it looks like it’s--ah--what’s the word—”

“Those look like library numbers.” Hala tapped the screen. “For books.”

Hongjoong paused, mouth open. Yeosang could see the points connecting in his hyung’s mind. Books. In Korean. But what about blue doors? “Oh, shi— I mean, oh wow, I think you’re right.” He ruffled her hair. “Clever girl. Hang on, does this make sense to you, at all?” He opened the first file on the drive. Yeosang craned his neck to get a clearer view of the screen; he was interested for real, now. 

“Blue doors...that sounds like the Marie-Antoinette French Heritage library in my hometown.”

Hongjoong met Yeosang’s eyes. 

“You think you could find your hometown on a map?”

Hala frowned. “Do you remember anything about the landscape around your hometown? Names of places? Parks? Museums? Things like that,” Mingi suggested. Hala nodded. He offered her a hand. “How about you come with me, and tell me everything you remember, and I’ll try and find it for you, hm? Then maybe we can drop you off with your family, too.”

The girl jerked back and shook her head violently. 

“Or just somewhere safe,” Hongjoong offered. “You don’t have to go back to your family if you don’t want to, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay!” Mingi said. “It’s a plan. And Wooyoung owes me the two things I want most in the world.”

Yeosang watched them go, leaning back against the side of the boat, it took a second for him to realise that he was being watched. Hongjoong could watch as much as he wanted, for all he cared. He was aware that it was obvious to anyone with eyes that the feelings he had for Mingi for the past two-and-a-bit years hadn’t gone away. It was obvious. And only about fifty percent of their crew seemed to have eyes. But unfortunately that fifty percent included both Hongjoong  _ and  _ Seonghwa, so double the concerned mothering. Fathering. Whatever. And it was only a matter of time before Yunho noticed as well, and then he had to worry about being pitied by team parent number three.

“Yeosang-ah…”  _ That  _ tone of voice. Whatever Hongjoong was going to say, he didn’t want to hear it; it wasn’t anything he hadn’t already heard a million times over. He stood up and walked away without a word. 

* * *

Seonghwa frowned at the coordinates Mingi had handed him, then ruffled Hala’s hair as he set down a plate of toast and scrambled eggs in front of her (he’d thought it best not to offer any meat until they’d figured out how to ask if they could.) “That’s not very far from here. About three days by sea, if we keep conserving our power, which we  _ should.”  _ He shot a pointed look at Yeosang. His last experiment on the generator had shorted their electrical system for a month, setting them back to the nineteenth century. They’d had to heat their water over a controlled bonfire and the filtration system had become triple the effort. 

“What if I want to stay?”

Seonghwa pouted. “I’m sorry, kiddo, we don’t have enough to look after you properly. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I don’t mind!” Hala chirped. 

Seonghwa shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Hongjoong-hyung and I actually already set us on our course last night,” Mingi said in between bites of toast. “So it’s actually more like two days now.”

“I can make it one if I install the solars on the mast today—”

“Yeosang-ah—”

Yeosang pouted. “I’m really not messing with the generator.”

“ _ No.” _

“He’ll come around eventually.” Mingi nudged Yeosang in the shoulder. 

“He’d better.”

Seonghwa rolled his eyes. He wished he could do something about the smile that played soft on his lips ( _ very  _ much against his will), though. 

Then, distantly, he caught the sound of a guitar being strummed--somewhere below-deck. The same mournful tune he was used to hearing. So, Yunho was awake. It was the same song that he’d been working on every day for a year now, always by himself, no matter how often anyone offered to help, and whenever they’d ask, he’d complain that no matter what he did he couldn’t quite figure out exactly how it was meant to be played. That was all he wanted, he said, to play it the way it was meant to be played. The half-finished, scraps of his brother’s sheet music were the first thing anyone saw upon entering his room. 

“Earth to Seonghwa.” He hadn’t even noticed that Hongjoong was standing right in front of him. That he was even awake at all, not that he looked like he had slept much to start with. 

He shook his head. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if you made enough for everyone, or if I need to fix myself something.”

Today Yunho had tuned the instrument differently, it seemed; it made the tune sound even more ghostly than usual.

“Seonghwa?”

“You can cook for yourself,” he said at last. “This one’s sadder than usual.”

Hongjoong followed his gaze, not that he was staring at anything other than the unfocused middle-distance. “It’s the anniversary,” he said, almost too quiet to pick up. Seonghwa was surprised that he could remember that sort of detail--usually those sorts of details slipped their captain’s mind but, then again—

He felt small hands tug at the cuff of his sleeve. “What are you talking about?” Hala asked. 

“Sorry,” Seonghwa tried for what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Yunho is playing music. Why don’t you go and ask him to teach you how?”

She nodded and rushed off, excited. 

“Is that a good idea?” Hongjoong looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“Distraction is better, right?”

Hongjoong shrugged, then shouldered the galley-door open.  _ Great input, very helpful.  _ Sometimes he really wanted to hit him. They all knew each other like the back of their hands; Seonghwa probably  _ better  _ than anyone else. What right did he have to question him? Just because--just because what? He’d known them all just as long. 

“Distraction  _ is  _ better,” he mumbled, and picked up Hala’s empty plate, ignoring Mingi and Yeosang’s eyes on him. 

* * *

San had been vying to be part of the ‘take Hala to the nearest good foster home’ team. His argument had been that he simply wanted to. This had not proven to be strong enough of an argument. Instead, he was team ‘research at the beheaded queen’s library.’ The lucky ones who got to hang out with the kid were Seonghwa and Wooyoung. Jongho was team boat. Because he couldn’t get off the boat. At least San wasn’t team boat; he had to count his blessings, after all. 

The library did, indeed, have blue doors--blue doors with the paint half beginning to chip off of them, and a little bilingual chalkboard sign outside that he couldn’t read for lack of ability in either written Arabic  _ or  _ French. Presumably it was about the books, but for all he knew it could be advertising guillotine services. He was already bored and confused and way more interested in the outside courtyard and the birds playing in the tree. 

“Yeosangie,” he said, slipping his arm into his friend’s. 

He felt Yeosang ruffle his hair with his free hand. “San-ah, Yeosang-ah, your attention?” Ah. Right. Hyung was trying to talk to them. San narrowed his eyes. “There’s a small Korean-language section; these numbers—” he handed them each a slip of paper, with the scrawled ‘code’ on it— “are the filing system for the books we’re looking for. The numbers at the bottom of the page are page numbers, I don’t know which is for which book, so try them all. And if anyone asks, we’re exchange students.”

The inside of the library about matched the outside; a weirdly European building in a clearly non-European town, kinda messy, disorganised. San was the first to spot the sign for the foreign language section, tearing away from the group only to discover that this meant language-learning, not books written in foreign languages. He checked anyway, but no dice. The actual section they were looking for was some dust-covered corner buried right at the back of the library, looking as if it hadn’t been touched in years. But he could read the titles of the books, so that had to count for something.

The first one he plucked off the shelf wasn’t a book so much as a pamphlet on the local history of the area that had been translated into seemingly every language under the sun through some sort of program that didn’t seem to get the nuance of certain words. Even so, the information within piqued his interest. 

The town had once been a Roman province, and there were,  _ allegedly,  _ unexcavated tomb-burials outside of the city walls that had gone ignored due to lack of funding. It was mostly sourced from local myth and hearsay, but those buried there had been buried with a wealth of grave-goods. Even more interesting, though, was the tiny red bubble that exclaimed ‘fun fact!’ According to local myth, at one point a group of smugglers dropped by and buried their goods outside the town; if that was true, then perhaps that was what they were meant to be looking for. He glanced around--not that he thought it was likely that he’d be watched in a place like this, and removed the page in one clean tear, then slipped it into his back-pocket. So that was page number twenty-one, cleared already. Unless two pieces of information fell on page twenty-one of their respective books. He sighed. 

He slid the pamphlet back into the shelf, pages facing outward--the signal that he’d already checked it. He had to step over Yeosang, flipping through some dusty old classical novel translation, to get to the next book--he snorted. 

“San?” 

“Children’s guide to Roman Mythology,” he whispered. 

“Can we trade?” Yeosang offered him his current project. 

“No, thank you.”

The rest of the day passed much the same way. Flipping through books. Taking mental notes. Gradually putting together the picture of a tomb, just outside the town, filled with treasures unimaginable, but warded with basic Roman guard charms (San didn’t believe in any Roman guarding charms), Hongjoong uncovered information on sickness-causing bacteria that could survive in the air underground, too, but that was far less interesting. And the prize piece? Because of the movement of the earth by animals and tectonic events, items from other tombs and layers in the ground entirely could’ve ended up in there. 

“It feels wrong to steal from the dead.” Yeosang frowned as they left. 

Hongjoong bit at his thumbnail. 

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Mingi said. “This dude died, and hoarded all his wealth just so that no one else could have it. Plus, archaeologists do it all the time--only difference is they were lucky enough to afford a degree, right?”

“The dead are…” San tried to find the right word. Usually he agreed with Mingi’s Robin Hood-ing, but something felt different this time. They were pirates, not graverobbers. 

“Sacred?” Yunho offered. San nodded. “I’m not sure about this either and--who knows--we might’ve got the wrong place again.”

“I don’t think it’s right,” Yeosang said, again. “And who says the person we’re doing this for will use the gold for good?”

“Of course  _ you  _ wouldn’t get it.” Mingi looked away. “You could’ve had any degree--any career you wanted--you just had to ask nicely.”

“Hey, you  _ know  _ that’s not—”

“We won’t make a decision without asking the others,” Hongjoong said, “so there’s no point in talking about it now. Let’s just get back.”

How much would Hongjoong tell the others before asking them to choose? Would he emphasise that Roman death mythology wasn’t as intensive as Egyptian? Would he play down the beliefs they did have? San was familiar with the ways the truth could be twisted. Seonghwa wanted accurate information, and San could bring him that; that was the deal they struck.

After all, there was a reason why Seonghwa had asked him to switch to the research team. 

* * *

The first thing that Jongho walked in on when he was finally able to put weight on his right leg again was a conversation about tomb raiding, and it was at that moment that he wondered if it was really worth knowing these people. Or walking. Or both. At the exact point when he opened the door, Mingi had been accusing Yeosang of--well, something about being far too keen to suck a dead guy’s dick--and Seonghwa’s head had fallen into his hands with a stern  _ “Mingi-ya.” _

“What the hell, guys?”

“Hello, Jongho!” San beamed in that bright, dimply, beam-y way that he tended to. 

“Are you feeling better?” Wooyoung asked as he shuffled over to give him room to sit. Jongho nodded. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t like that Wooyoung seemed to be acting extra nice since he’d sprained his ankle over him. “Turns out the job requires us to rob some Roman’s grave.”

“Ah.” 

Yeosang folded his arms. “I think it’s wrong.” Seonghwa nodded, slowly. 

Yunho just stared at his hands. 

“ _ He’s  _ not using it,” Mingi said. 

“Isn’t it disrespectful?” Jongho asked, careful not to fall too hard against the idea, lest he be accused of being a bootlicker for the dead. 

“I think—” Hongjoong bit his lip. 

“It’s worth it,” Yunho said, at last. Almost so quiet that they couldn’t hear him. “Anything we could dream of, right?”

Hongjoong nodded. 

“And what if that was a lie?” Seonghwa asked. 

The atmosphere of the room was held from breaking by a single thread. Jongho could feel it. 

“We don’t have to be disrespectful,” Mingi said. “That thing Sannie read about--that there’s probably stuff in there that wasn’t buried with the guy--wait, didn’t you say there’s some legend about smuggler’s treasure?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah.” San placed a sheet of torn paper on the table, which Jongho quickly scanned. The myth in question sounded like something from an adventure book.

“What if that fell into the tomb? Maybe that’s what we’re meant to look for.”

Yeosang frowned. 

“Are you seriously doubt--”

“No, that’s a good idea,” Yeosang said. “But how do I know it’s a sincere one?”

“Because you love me?”

Jongho bit his tongue. Yeosang just raised his eyebrows. “You’re a real asshole, sometimes, Mingi-ya,” he murmured, at last, averting his eyes. 

“Really, we’d be doing him a favour by cleaning up, right?” Wooyoung said. “So why not? And who knows, maybe when we get there, there’ll be a note on his tombstone saying he was a well-known philanthropist or something. It’s not like he chose his own grave goods.”

“Oh, that’s true,” San widened his eyes. 

“Wait.” Jongho frowned. “Did none of you seriously consider that yet?”

The flush of Mingi’s ears and Yeosang’s gaped mouth was enough to answer his question. Remarkable. The youngest of their group, and yet he and Wooyoung were the smartest. Although mostly him. Wooyoung was only occasionally smart. 

“So,” Hongjoong sighed, “have we come to an agreement?”

Nods and ayes all around, and next Hongjoong was explaining to them the precautions that they’d need to take to make sure that they didn’t get sick and-slash-or cursed. Sometimes Jongho wondered what must’ve happened for him to end up where he had. 

* * *

The entrance to the tomb had been cleverly concealed behind the edge of a rock formation, and the seal came apart--not easily--but  _ enough _ with their combined manpower, crashing into the desert sound, the dull sound of the impact enough to resound down the steps. They all wore close to gas masks, and surgical gloves covered their hands: it had been the best kind of precautionary measure they’d been able to take. And they’d all agreed to shower once they got back. Good, Seonghwa thought, some of them really needed it.

No one moved. 

“So, who wants to enter the creepy tomb?” Wooyoung asked. “Any volunteers?” Hongjoong pinched him in the arm.

“I think Mingi should do it, since he’s so keen,” Yeosang said, and Seonghwa could just  _ feel  _ the smile on his face. This was the most revenge he’d ever try to get. They might as well let him have it. 

“I agree with Yeosang.”

“Mingi? It’s not too late to give up this line of work and become a professional babysitter.” Hongjoong cocked his head at their resident graverobbing enthusiast, the enthusiasm now gone as he stood stiff in front of the entrance. He swallowed and nodded. 

After Mingi entered, they followed close. The air went cold the moment Seonghwa stepped through the stone entrance and, god, wasn’t the air only supposed to get thinner as you went  _ up?  _ Because lightheaded-ness had begun to make his head spin the further they descended. Even if it was only about five-or-so steps to the bottom. The tomb itself was a tiny room with a stone coffin at the centre, and shelves carved into the walls around. On them were clay pots, some of which had been knocked to the floor to reveal their contents--mostly ash (burned offerings, he hoped, rather than deceased relatives.)

His stomach churned. 

At the other end was the prize they were looking for--that was where he had to turn his attention. Not think too hard about the fact that he was standing in a tomb, and that he was only a few feet away from a dead body. The ceiling had fallen in at some point, along with dirt, and some sort of smuggler’s chest. 

“So, it was true.” He heard San’s muffled voice from somewhere to his left, but his eyes were focused on something else. He crept around the coffin, careful not to disturb any part of the tomb, to reach the edge of the smashed chest. There, just--on the floor--something so familiar. He picked it up, the familiar metal cool in the touch of his hand as he turned it between his fingers.

There, engraved, same font, same place, same scuffs, same--everything:  _ be free.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beep boop I have no idea what to say here this time other than hello! I'm updating this _as_ my friend is reading it so let's see how that goes teehee. I wrote the entire first half of this listening to banks and the entire second half listening to Chelsea Wolfe; let me know if you're interested in seeing me make a writing playlist because I will absolutely make one.


	4. Some People Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 09/03/21: This chapter is pretty angsty, so make sure to wrap up all cosy and have something nice to comfort yourself with afterwards. Don't worry, I promise I'll fix it soon!
> 
> 17/03/21: Major modifications made for consistency with FEVER Part.2 lore as well as for pacing.

In Hongjoong’s memory, he felt the sand beneath his toes. Sun-warm, sea-sodden, the water of the waves lapped it away--a pleasant warm, so light with salt that he could almost feel each grain if he focused. And the smell--fuck, the _smell._ The fragrance of sea-spray, different in the most subtle way to sea-salt; the scent of fresh fish from the market behind him, set up where a car-park usually was. Metal shells exchanged for ones of calcium and carbon. The waves whispered to him, hushed, over and over, like a mother quieting their child. 

He’d knelt, not giving a shit if his knees got damp, and let the water run over his hands, felt the warmth of the sun through it, watched it ripple over his fingers. It had been so beautiful--that’s what he remembered most of all. And in that moment, it had made him--scrappy teenager with his messy, self-cut hair that he was--beautiful, too. 

When he was just some unwanted kid, alone, nowhere to go, the sea had opened her arms and tugged at his core--at his soul. The part of him that wasn’t defined by the body he wore; when he was in the water, it was if he _was_ the water. 

_“You were fully clothed, remember?”_

He remembered. He’d gone swimming fully dressed, and Seonghwa had offered him a towel afterwards, then called him a stupid boy. That was when Hongjoong had decided that they were friends--not that he let Seonghwa know that, of course. He had a reputation to uphold.

When Yunho asked if Seonghwa wanted to join them, though, Hongjoong stopped shaking his head.

 _Fuck,_ they’d been so young. Two eighteen-year-olds who barely got along, and the seventeen-year-old in desperate need of someone to fill the space his brother had left. Hongjoong had known from the very beginning that he’d die for those two. And then it was those three, then those four, then five, six, seven. He hadn’t known he had room to love that many people--he hadn’t known he could love like _that._

_“I remember.” He took a sip of his drink, feeling the touch of alcohol burn at his throat._

That evening, alone in the warehouse. Everyone else had gone. Only he and Seonghwa were left, the two lone adults, perched at opposite ends of the couch. Nineteen, the weight of the world fresh on their shoulders, their lives already falling apart. Sometimes there were moments between them, moments where he felt like they were really the only people in the entire world who’d ever be able to understand one another.

 _“You should go home. I’ll clean up,”_ _he said._

He didn’t tell Seonghwa that he was homeless. He didn’t want him to offer him a place to stay--he didn’t need that. He’d work things out on his own eventually. In his memory, Hongjoong could see the stars in Seonghwa’s eyes as they regarded one another from across that half-metre between them, and he’d almost laughed, thinking about how beautifully appropriate his name was. Seonghwa was worried about him, the same way he’d been worried about him when he emerged from the water fully dressed over a year earlier.

_“I’ll be fine,” he said, “go.”_

And part of him still wondered if things would’ve turned out different if Seonghwa had ignored him. Had stayed to help. If things would have turned out better.

* * *

“Hey!” Hongjoong’s method of summoning their weird commissioner friend was a little obnoxious. “We got the shit.”

The three strongest (uninjured) of their crew, stood protectively around their captain. Really they would’ve liked Jongho there, too, but no one really wanted to risk him getting even more injured, so instead their party consisted of Yunho, Yeosang, and San. Mingi had also offered to come (for the height advantage), but then their navigation system had broken down, and he’d been the only one who actually had any idea how it worked.

Hongjoong had insisted on leaving as soon as they were done with this, and Yunho shared the sentiment. This situation was...creepy. There was really no other word for it.

“Five more minutes and we leave and just sell this crap to highest bidder,” Hongjoong muttered. “And maybe leave some local archaeologists with a tip. For the science.”

Yunho laughed. Or, well, tried to. It was difficult when they were standing in a dark alleyway, waiting for some unknown figure to show up and take a buttload of money from them in exchange for their greatest wish. He bit his lip. His greatest wish--it might not be that distant now, if this was real. To see his older brother look at him, for him to respond to him, to introduce him to his friends. He shook his head. None of that.

“Kim Hongjoong.”

The voice made Yunho’s muscles seize up, made his spine turn to ice. It was so… _familiar._ Familiar, but unrecogniseable. Hongjoong set the chest down on the ground, tapped it with his foot. “Is this what you wanted?” The quiet following the question it--he felt his fingers curl against his will. The visceral discomfort was something that he had never experienced before, something that he never wanted to experience again.

“Kim Hongjoong.”

“A yes or no answer will do.” Hongjoong folded his arms, picture of bored confidence. Fake, yes. Convincing, also yes.

“No.”

Yunho grit his teeth. _No._ After all of that, _no?_ “What do you mean?” He stepped forwards against his own will, his mouth moved without him asking it to, words escaped. The shadow--that’s all that it was, obscured in the darkness--tilted its head to one side, regarded him for a moment. All those years, when he was just a boy curled up in bed, the dark playing tricks on his mind, and this was worse than anything he could have ever imagined living in those obscured spaces.

San’s hand around his wrist, gentle but firm.

“Leave clearer instructions,” Hongjoong said. He played a bored man so well. He might easily be the best actor of all of them. “Well, I suppose—” they paused even their breaths at the sound of hurried footsteps, San, quick as ever, moving to perch on top of the chest, the folds of his coat a curtain from prying eyes.

Yunho wasn’t sure who he expected; the authorities maybe? Excited children playing? Teenagers out after dark who weren’t supposed to be? Maybe fellow criminals on the run.

He wasn’t expecting Seonghwa to emerge from between the buildings, hood fallen down around his face, breathing heavily. San rushed over to him, but--what did they even say in this situation? Talking was spinning the barrel in a game of russian roulette. Instead, they stood, trying to communicate something, _anything_ through eye-contact alone. But Yunho couldn’t keep from watching their captain, the way he kept his eyes trained on that figure, narrowed in an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“I need to borrow Yeosang,” Seonghwa said. He’d paled in the time it had taken him to catch his breath.

“What for?” Hongjoong turned to face him. Seonghwa answered in gesture rather than sound--a tactic they’d developed to make sure they were never forced to expose any kind of weakness in front of anyone else. With one hand he formed the shape of a circle--compass, navigation--then he clenched it into a fist, splayed the fingers of his free hand around it. Broken navigation. Dangerous. In the light of the moon, the thin metal bangle that he had taken to wearing around his wrist shone almost white.

“That,” the figure spoke.

Seonghwa froze. Just for a second, then grabbed Yeosang by the arm, dragged him away with the barest muttered thanks toward Hongjoong. To Hongjoong’s credit, he didn’t flinch, just turned slow on his heel, back to face their business partner, but Yunho could see in the set of his jaw that he was angry. “Wasn’t the deal,” Hongjoong said, with a shrug.

What kind of life did a person have to lead to be able to improvise so cleanly in such deeply unsettling situations? He only knew half of what his hyung had been through, and that was just what had happened _after_ they met. Even when they were two teenagers in the same counsellor’s waiting room, he still could only ever make the vaguest guesses at the reason why he was there.

Hongjoong took a step forward and picked the chest up from the ground in one swift movement, resting the weight of it against his hip. “Come on, boys. Don’t wanna waste any more time.”

It wasn’t until they were almost back to the Zaya that Hongjoong handed the chest to San and let himself shudder.

“What was that?” Yunho asked, clutching his own arms for comfort.

“I wish I fucking knew.”

* * *

Wooyoung had, unfortunately it seemed, been looking forward to the job being over (even if according to Mingi, he owed him his reward--he would still argue that he found Hala, and that counted for something). Instead, what they’d gotten was a slightly exploded electrical system (how?) and an even grouchier captain than normal. By the sounds of things, anyway. Wooyoung kept his distance above deck, ‘keeping watch.’ No one complained. An angry Hongjoong-hyung was a scary Hongjoong-hyung. He’d argue it was even _scarier_ if the person he was angry at wasn’t him.

He sensed someone sidle up next to him.

“How’s the team meeting going?”

“I had to leave.” San heaved himself up so that he was sitting on the side of the boat, illuminated from behind by the pale moonlight.

“Too much?”

“I got kicked out.”

“Wow, you bad boy.”

San punched him in the arm. Wooyoung elbowed him in the thigh. Below them, he could make out the faint sound of Seonghwa’s voice and only Seonghwa’s voice. The problem with Hongjoong was that when he was _really_ pissed off, he didn’t raise his voice. So, if Wooyoung couldn’t make him out, then he was really pissed. Like, for real, and not just the slightly annoyed, raised voice, exasperated warning tone in which he usually addressed Wooyoung.

“What are they talking about?”

“Your little explosion.”

Wooyoung cleared his throat. “Let the record state that I had _nothing_ to do with that. All Mingi.” San raised his eyebrows. “Besides, once the smoke cleared it turned out it wasn’t even as bad as we thought. We probably didn’t even need Yeosang.”

“You still didn’t manage to fix it until he got back.”

“We made good headway!”

“He said your wiring was the worst he’d ever seen.”

Wooyoung pouted. “I still think we would’ve got it eventually.” Something thudded below. San winced. “Why did you get kicked out anyway?”

“For not helping,” he said. Wooyoung nudged him. “I offered them tea instead of just sitting quietly like everyone else.”

“Oh, damn.” Wooyoung bit his lip. “Must be really heated. Usually they never fight, just bicker.” He turned his gaze down on the water, like black glass in the darkness. When was the last time his hyungs had actually _fought_? Even when the rest of them had been about ready to kill each other, they’d seemed more preoccupied with not letting that get out of hand than joining in.

“I miss the bickering.”

“There’s no way that this is _just_ about the smoke bomb.”

“Wooyoung-ah, are you trying to rebrand the explosion?”

“And what of it?” He picked himself up from where he leant against the side, and lowered himself to his knees. There was a place in the deck where the layout of the boat meant that sound always travelled through louder than expected--they’d discovered it because of karaoke; Wooyoung had kept it in mind just in case any of them happened to get laid. Avoid _that_ spot. His fingers met with the groove and he pressed his ears down against it. The wood was thicker than he remembered, the sound more muffled, but he could just about make out the conversation below.

“...and what the hell was that? You do realise you left me high and dry there? We still have no idea who this person is, and you made us vulnerable.”

“Our home blowing up would’ve also made us vulnerable!” Wooyoung could hear the crack in Seonghwa’s voice. Whenever he got heated, he’d jump an octave.

“I don’t understand why you had to leave so suddenly.” Hongjoong’s voice, by contrast, was cold. Enough that he felt it from where he crouched. San shuffled into place next to him. “You know the guy we were talking to? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I--nothing, I’ve told you everything.”

“It looked like he wanted Seonghwa-hyung.” Yunho’s voice. “But that doesn’t make any _sense—”_

“What did he want, then, Seonghwa? Do you know?”

Silence. Not the empty kind. Not the comfortable kind. More the kind that came from baited breath and halted movements.

“When did you get that?”

“The tomb.”

“It was part of the smugglers’ treasure?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not just give it to him, Seonghwa—”

“I just _can’t.”_

Wooyoung met San’s eyes and saw them tainted with confusion. Seonghwa was--well, he was the sentimental type, but he’d also always been the rational type, too. He was the voice of reason. Whatever it was that he was refusing to give up--it must be important. _Really_ important. All he could hear below was the shuffle of feet. San cupped a hand around his ear.

“You put our crew in danger for this?” Hongjoong’s tone. God, he’d heard that voice before just-- _dripping_ with disappointment. The voice he used when he didn’t just disagree with you, when he thought that you were wrong on some deeper, ethical level. Hearing that--you knew you screwed up. You knew. But usually that tone was reserved for the actual trouble-makers, not for _Seonghwa._ If Hongjoong was going to scold Seonghwa, then something was very wrong.

More shuffling. Wooyoung pressed his ear as close to the deck as it would go, but below was quiet now. _Fuck._ He was sure there must have been some sort of quieter exchange, or maybe they weren’t talking, maybe--he turned his head. There had to be a crack in the deck that he could see through if he just looked closely enough. Just because none of them had found one yet didn’t mean one wasn’t there, but the Zaya’s deck was too polished, the boards too perfect, more than usual.

“I’m leaving.”

He jumped at the sound of Seonghwa’s voice. Their eldest stood in front of the two of them, right where they’d been caught red-handed (sawdust-eared?) He had his travelling coat on, a bag of belongings strung over his shoulder. He looked like a ghost, almost, with the way the white fabric of his clothes fluttered gently in the wind. When had he climbed up? Why hadn’t they heard him? Were they really that far off their game?

“Oh,” was all Wooyoung could say. He shook his head. “I mean--when will you be back?”

Seonghwa didn’t answer immediately. Instead, knelt in front of the two of them. “I’m _leaving,”_ he said again. Wooyoung didn’t miss the edge in his voice. Whatever had happened, Seonghwa was angry, _really_ angry, and he hadn’t waited to cool off.

San grabbed his hand. “Hyung—”

“I don’t understand.” Wooyoung frowned, searched his hyung’s face for any trace of some sort of explanation. All Seonghwa did was smile. And then stand up. And then--shit, and that was the hardest part of all of it to believe--all he did then was walk away. As if it was easy. As if Wooyoung wasn’t sitting there, missing half of the puzzle pieces, trying to figure out what had just happened. Seonghwa never left. That was--that was the thing that never changed. Seonghwa had never left before. Most of them had thrown some sort of tantrum at some point and stormed off, but never Seonghwa.

Never.


	5. After All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17/03/21: Major modifications for pacing. Comments on this chapter may spoil the next chapter.

Day three of no Seonghwa. Jongho finally snapped and yelled at the others for not doing the washing up. Hongjoong was still on that stupid USB because there _had to be more to it._ Or something. Which was his way of saying that he regretted tearing into their hyung like that but that he was too stubborn to admit that’s what it was, so instead he was just trying to find a way to fix it without having to go and beg for forgiveness. And they’d run out of running water. Not so much of a problem for the more axe body spray inclined of their crew, but Yeosang _liked_ bathing, and he didn’t like hauling water up from the river to run through their filtration system only for it to come out the same murky brown as it went in.

It was broken, and he couldn’t even figure out _why_ it was broken, no matter how many times he took it apart and reassembled it (and yes, he was _sure_ he’d done it properly.)

He could break the thing himself at this point. This was worse than the monastery. He pressed the base of his palms to his forehead, not caring if he smeared oil all over his face--he just needed to get away, take a moment. If he worked on the filtration system for one more minute he’d go insane. God, what he wouldn’t give for someone to talk to, but—

Mingi had said he wanted to go away for a while, set the tomb right. Or something. So no Mingi to talk to. Fine. Yunho didn’t leave his room anymore, so he’d have to go and enter the weird music graveyard if he wanted to talk to _him._ San had gone to find Seonghwa. Yeosang assumed that this was code for ‘I would rather hang around with him than the rest of you, peace out and have fun.’ He hadn’t come back, after all, and it’s not like it would’ve taken him long to find their hyung. So there was Jongho, who was fetching water, or Wooyoung, who was up in the crow’s nest, avoiding the world.

Instead, he kicked his tools away and made for the hatch. There was still one place he could go, one place left that was sacred. Down the latter, past all of their rooms, right to the hull of the boat, where he could climb down into the deepest pocket of space that there was, where would find himself below the water, surrounded on all sides, completely isolated from the outside world and--facing modern, plastic lining.

Their Zaya--their Zaya hadn’t been hit that far down. There was no reason for—

“What the fuck?” He ran his hand along the base of the boat in disbelief. It wasn’t--this wasn’t even the same _shape_ as the Zaya’s had been. He’d been there enough times to know. There would’ve been no reason to replace the hull. God, he _knew_ there wouldn’t because he’d reinforced the damned thing himself. The original had been fit to _his_ specifications. Sure--wooden planks looking a little different, that made sense, wood gets weakened with time, snaps. Rigging, sails, mast, wheel; all of those things could be written off, but now, god, he’d been so stupid. Of course they hadn’t been that damaged, it’d just been so long since they’d last been there that he could let himself forget.

He scrambled back up, pounded on Hongjoong’s door.

“Come in.”

His hyung was sitting cross-legged on the chair in front of his desk, a pad of paper in front of him, ballpoint pen hanging loose in his grip. Plans for something, Yeosang was sure. Maybe his next deception.

“This ship isn’t Zaya,” he said. Hongjoong froze. “Where’s Zaya?”

“Yeosang, I can explain—”

“Then explain.” Yeosang could feel the panic rising in his throat. “Where is she?”

“She’s here, Yeosang-ah, I just—”

“Kim Hongjoong, explain.” He wanted more words. He could only think about Zaya. He could only think about her, where she was, what happened to her. He didn’t have enough words to say what he wanted to say.

Hongjoong presented him with a laptop screen. Zaya, there she was. In the water. Yeosang reached out, brushed his fingers against the static of the monitor. That was how he remembered her. Her sides painted, her sails a hundred bright colours, full in the wind. _Wait. How was there footage of Zaya?_ He drew his hand back. “Where is she?” He asked again. So many memories, smearing paint on each others’ faces while they adorned her sides, their smeared handprints still across the deck, paint splatter everywhere.

Hongjoong swallowed. He pulled back the curtains at the side of his porthole to reveal the engraving that he and Wooyoung had carved into the panelling for a drunken bet. “She’s still here, Yeosang. She just has a different shell now.”

“You didn’t say--you didn’t say there was footage.”

Hongjoong’s voice was gentler than he’d ever heard it. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You really fucked that one up, hyung.” Yeosang hadn’t noticed Wooyoung arrive, hadn’t noticed him slip through the doorway to stand next to him. “Come on, Yeosang, let’s go.” He tugged at his wrist, Yeosang let him. What was the point in resisting now, anyway? It wasn’t like they were really even leaving _their_ ship, just a beautiful copy with a stolen name.

Jongho was standing at the other end of the hallway.

“What?” Wooyoung asked. “Are you going to stop us?”

He shook his head. “I’m coming, too.”

“Oh.”

Yeosang looked back. Hongjoong wasn’t watching them. He had his eyes shut, head bowed as he leant against his doorframe, as if he’d wanted to chase them and thought better of it.

“Then, let’s go,” Wooyoung said. And he dragged Yeosang away.

* * *

Hongjoong was too fucking _warm,_ and his life had gotten so low that even a lukewarm bath and his friends yelling at each other outside would’ve been more welcome than the absolute nothing that was him lying shirtless, face down on the top of his loft bed, listening to the sound of the water at the edge of the ship. If he looked up, he’d see the names of his crew--his ex-crew carved on the wall right next to his bed. He didn’t look up.

_“You keep us cooped up for a month and a half without telling us why this time is different to the last ones, you hide things from us, you ignore us, you dismiss everything we say.”_

Wooyoung’s accusation. Back then he probably hadn’t known what Hongjoong was hiding. The corners of his eyes pricked. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck.”_

“Hyung?” Yunho. That’s right. At least he still had Yunho, and if he had Yunho, then things weren’t so bad, right?

“Yunho-ya.” He reached for the nearest item of clothing, some old band shirt, and slid it over his head. “Come in.”

Yunho stood awkwardly, his eyes falling on the random items of clothing strewn around the room, the notebook on his desk, the closed laptop at the end of his bed. The quiet didn’t surprise him; what would Yunho even say after everything? Still, he overheard the whole thing and he still stayed. That made him feel slightly better. “Um—” he coughed. “Sannie says that Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho are staying together in the town.”

Hongjoong nodded. He hadn’t really expected that Mingi would go back to a ship where his closest friends weren’t. “Where’s Yeosang?”

Yunho shook his head. “San doesn’t know.”

He bit his lip. If they were home, he’d expect Yeosang to have gone back to his parents, to have settled back into the life they wanted for him. But they _weren’t_ home, and if anything happened to Yeosang, Hongjoong would kill whoever was responsible. And he didn’t feel like dying just yet, so he had better fucking be safe.

“What...ah…” Yunho avoided his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find the rest of that smugglers’ treasure,” he said.

“Hyung—”

“I’ll unfuck this. I know I can, I just--I just have to get it right.”

* * *

Seonghwa remembered the sensation of falling, seeing his fickle friend out there, among the riptides. He swam as if it was nothing, like he was made to be a part of the ocean. The day had been sunny, but the winds had been sharp, and the sea was anything but calm. He remembered the sting of salt against his face, and the bitter chill’s kiss against his cheek.

Hongjoong didn’t fear the ocean, and when he climbed out onto the rocks, right in front of the place where Seonghwa stood, he smiled. He looked like a creature that was _part_ of the sea, not one who swam within it. The way his shirt had clung to his form--Seonghwa thought it looked like it was a part of him--those illustrations of mermaids where the scales came all the way up across their chests.

 _“You stupid boy,”_ he’d said. And thrown the towel that his grandmother had sent him to the shore with at his face. And Hongjoong had laughed and called him stupid back, then they’d been friends.

He turned the bracelet over in his hand again, ignoring San’s gentle snores from the bed across the room from him. He’d been wearing it that night in the warehouse, the first time their group had fallen in on itself. He remembered the way it had hit the lip of the bottle he had been drinking from--the chime that had rung out around the room. It had been such a beautiful sound.

He’d never felt so old in his life, but then Hongjoong spoke, told him to go home, that he’d clean up, and he had _known_ something was off, but he’d gone. Even if he’d hesitated with every step that he took, he’d gone.

In the end, he was just another person to leave Kim Hongjoong. But this time he deserved it, so why did it have to hurt so much?

* * *

It always had to be so fucking hot--hot sand, burning Hongjoong’s hands as he scraped through it, lodging underneath his fingernails, burning the nailbed. A week of planning. A week of study and research and cross-referencing everything that he’d already done to try and locate the exact spot above ground which would overlap where the ceiling of the tomb had fallen in. And layers of dirt and sand and scorpions shovelled away which he _wasn’t_ fucking afraid of, even if he had yelped when the first one had crawled over the tip of his boot.

Yunho was on scorpion duty. And beetle duty. And spider duty. ‘Any creature that Hongjoong didn’t feel like picking up personally’ duty. He’d created an invertebrate paradise over on a nearby rock formation. Apparently two of the scorpions were fighting. Good for them. Knowing the animal kingdom, it was probably some sort of mating ritual. By the same logic he and Seonghwa should be tangled up together soon enough--the thought made him laugh.

He drove the shovel harder into the ground. The dirt was parched, dry, no longer the easily moved sands of the desert, but at least it didn’t collapse in on itself with every movement.

This was their third hole. A second shovel landed next to him in the pit.

“Hyung, I think this is useless.”

“Then go home,” Hongjoong said. He didn’t bother looking back to his friend. He just waited, listened to the sound of Yunho’s footsteps shifting the sand as he walked away.

Hongjoong fell to his knees on the cracked earth. There had to be _something._ Because if there wasn’t, then this was all for nothing, and he was fucked. He was fucked, and he had fucked everything up, and whatever he had planned to trade with that bastard just to bring his family back to him didn’t even exist.

Again, he drove the shovel into the ground, hitting a crack between the dirt. The impact shook part of the side of the pit, made the side of it crumble away slightly, exposing the edge of some small, dark object.

“The fuck?” He said, under his breath. It was warm to the touch as he prized it out from the wall, sending more dirt down into the trench. A small, black, rectangular object--a wallet. He frowned. Odd. _Real_ odd. How had it ended up so far from the surface? He looked back to the area of the wall he had removed it from and saw the glimmer of gold-- _shit._ Part of more smuggler’s treasure? Or coins that had fallen out from this?

He flipped it open.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

This wasn’t just some random wallet. Staring back at him, slotted into place, was the eery perfectly preserved picture of--of _him._ Him. As a baby, sat, propped up, dressed in christening frills in front of the woman who had once been his mother. He’d seen this picture a million times, every time he opened his wallet to pay for something, to ask someone if they recognised the people in the picture, just to reminisce. The smugglers—

The smugglers who had been there, who had hidden all of this shit. They’d--the gold still glinted from where it was embedded in the wall. No, no, no. There was no way. He didn’t remember--why didn’t he remember? This couldn’t have been his. There—

The bracelet that Seonghwa had found. It was the same, wasn’t it?

_He was so fucking stupid._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now have a writing playlist and while I know that no one actually asked for it, I am going to share the link anyway: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1e4P7ztayjrpDvVnyh7M82?si=91b426d964f44441 It's a lot of Chelsea Wolfe, it's still a work in progress, but it's what I use.


	6. A Homecoming Long Overdue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 17/03/21: Major changes for pacing. Comments on this chapter may spoil the next one.

Hala was tired, bored of lying around at the foster home. It was only a small town, there weren’t many other kids to stay in places like that; all the others were so much older, or so much younger. She had no one to play with and she didn’t know anyone very well. Their main priority was to keep her safe and occupied, the matron (that’s what the word sounded like, though Seonghwa couldn’t be sure) said. Safe and healthy.

_So, can we take her to the market?_

_Of course you can take her to the market._

The truth was that if Hala was bored, then so was he. And he didn’t have school to occupy himself five days a week. Instead, he had a run-down hostel room with San, one that he rarely left. She swung between him and San as they walked, chattering about all of the nice things her oppas should get for her, all the snacks that she wanted to eat, the spices that she’d like to try. 

The square was so flush with people, lined with stalls selling everything from produce to clothes, to knockoff bags, to streetfood, and he had missed being out during the daylight so much, where the sun could warm him.

He was half-aware of Hala pulling San away to go and look at a stall selling cheap jewelry--they had plenty of jewels that if they gave to her she could sell and use to buy a future, but still he saw San playing around, joking around with different earrings and bangles. Instead, Seonghwa found himself drawn to a stall selling rich fabrics, woven with golden and bronze thread, dyed in red and purple, rich men’s colours. He ran his hands along the surface of one of the brocades. It was no good sail fabric, but--but what? He didn’t live that life anymore. It was beautiful, he could afford it--maybe it was impractical and he would never use it, but they were by no means poor. Pawning even one of the chains he wore around his neck would probably buy him the whole stall.

He sighed.

“What’s wrong?” The vendor leant over their counter.

“It’s...beautiful,” he said, raking the back of his mind for the vocabulary to say what he meant. “I cannot use it.”

“What about your wife?”

Seonghwa choked. “No--no wife,” he said hastily. The vendor laughed.

“You’re so handsome, though.”

“I’m still...young.”

The vendor laughed again. He supposed, though, there was no reason to stop anyone from marrying young--if you fell madly in love with someone, so much that they occupied your every thought, wouldn’t you try and be with them as quickly as possible? “Buy fabric,” the vendor said, “for your wife to wear when you marry her.” He winked. Seonghwa felt himself flush.

In the end he did. Two different kinds. Not for his hypothetical future bride, though. Six metres of one gorgeous red, embroidered in thick golden and yellow thread; then two metres of a pretty, purple fabric with bronze flecks and deep azure patterning--he only hoped that Hala would be taken enough with the idea of making herself her very own princess dress to want it. 

And about Hala...where had she and San gotten to?

It didn’t take too long to find them again, sitting together on a bench, faces smeared with sauce and fryer-grease as they ate and laughed. Hala had a loud, bubbly giggle that he could hear halfway across the square. Maybe it would all be okay. Maybe he and San _could_ stay here, find normal jobs, take Hala to the market at the weekends . And maybe Seonghwa _would_ find a wife, get married, live out the rest of his life in that little town. If he could just let go of the idea that just because that was where he had spent the last few years of his life, he would always be with the crew of the Zaya.

“Having fun?” He asked them. Hala nodded.

“We got some for you, too—” San reached behind him and produced some sort of pastry wrapped in brown paper.

The rest of the day was pleasant, passed in idle chat with Hala, wandering aimlessly from stall to stall, looking at all the wares on display. On the way home, they stopped under a tree so that Seonghwa could crouch in front of Hala to show her the fabric he had got for her--her eyes lit up.

“One of my big sisters is good at sewing,” she said, excited. “She’ll teach me.”

“Oh yeah?” Seonghwa ruffled her hair. “Well, then let’s get back.”

Their walk back was dominated by Hala’s musings on what kinds of things she was going to make and, how once she had made a dress for herself, she was going to make dresses for all of the dolls in her room, or maybe one of the babies at the foster home. She hadn’t decided, she said, because the babies came and went all the time, but they also all looked so sad in the same outfits all the time. There were only two there, she said; little boys, but she didn’t care, because it wasn’t like they could argue about being put in pretty dresses, and dresses are pretty whoever wears them. Seonghwa laughed and smiled, tried and failed not to think about how Hongjoong had once said something similar to him while rummaging through the costumes backstage of a school theatre production. 

Hala went straight to find her big sister the moment they got back, the matron offered he and San something cool to drink, an offer which he couldn’t refuse.

And so they sat, quiet in the garden, sipping on lemon presse. It was a pretty garden. There were flowerbeds, and a small area of woodchips down with a swing set. A good place for a kid to grow up, even if Hala didn’t ever get adopted, he hoped. A million times nicer than the places that Hongjoong had described from his childhood. He hoped that Hala’s life would be a million times better than any of theirs. He wouldn’t wish the life they led on anyone else.

The life they’d once led. He’d left. God, he kept having to tell himself that. He could have a better life, too, a better life without a group of troublemakers to keep an eye on at all times, or a stubborn captain to tease, or a ship to maintain, or—

He stood up.

“Hyung?” San stared at him. Stared at him, staring at the open back gate, at.

At Hongjoong.

His clothes were torn, covered in dirt, the knees of his jeans almost scuffed away. Even at a distance, Seonghwa could see the dullness of his skin, his cracked lips, bloody fingernails, the haunted, exhausted glaze of his eyes. And his fist closed tight around some small, dark rectangular object. How did Hongjoong always look so awful? Every time he looked at him, he was a mess. Completely and utterly. And yet Seonghwa had to clench his fists and grit his teeth to keep himself from acting out. He didn’t know what he’d do; he didn’t want to find out yet.

Hongjoong held up his empty hand, a gesture of peace. “I was wrong.”

Okay. Decent start. It would be interesting to see where he was going with this. Seonghwa raised his eyebrows.

“Back then--I didn’t understand what that bracelet meant to you and I acted like an asshole. I thought if we just completed the mission I could ask the bastard to keep us together, but I was wrong.” He was quiet for a second. “I should’ve trusted you. You’re my second in command; if I don’t trust you, then our whole crew falls apart. We can’t stay together if we don’t trust each other or listen to each other. I’m--I’m sorry. ”

Seonghwa nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?” San looked at him, eyes wide.

“I said okay.” Seonghwa folded his arms.

Hongjoong stared at him, equally confused. “W-what?”

“You admit you were wrong?” Seonghwa asked. Hongjoong nodded. “And you should’ve trusted me? And that accusing me of putting the whole crew in danger over something that small wasn’t fair? That implying I was selfish was a step too far?”

Hongjoong swallowed.

“Do you admit that you were arrogant? That you put your need for things to work out the way that you wanted them to above the feelings of your crew? That you’ve been an asshole recently?”

Hongjoong hung his head.

“How do you plead?”

“Guilty as charged,” he sighed.

“What changed your mind?” Seonghwa softened his voice, moving closer. Hongjoong opened his palm to reveal a small, brown leather wallet. The kind he always used to carry around when they were teenagers. Seonghwa raised an eyebrow.

“Something only I would understand--same as your bracelet,” he said. “I don’t know what it means to you, Seonghwa, but I know it means a lot, probably as much as this means to me. I should’ve seen that.”

“It’s okay,” he said.

“I had to come and find you both, because--I think that smugglers’ treasure. There’s something weird about the whole situation; I don’t think it’s just some random group, otherwise why would these things have been buried with it.”

San stood up. “You think—”

Hongjoong nodded. “And I think there was a reason our _friend_ wanted these items.”

San brightened. “Does this mean we’re gonna find the others?”

Something clicked back into place. No, he wasn’t meant to stay here. He wasn’t meant to settle down, get married, dress his bride in pretty brocades. This world wasn’t the right fit for him; of _course_ he couldn’t stay here. Living his life by those sorts of arbitrary rules--that had been the whole reason he’d left it behind in the first place.

“Yeah,” Hongjoong said, and Seonghwa felt _right_ again. “I think it does.”

* * *

Mingi woke up with his face full of Wooyoung’s hair, the tiny monthly rental room lit in stripes by the light filtering through the blinds, illuminating the warm tones that seemed almost liquid in the flow. Jongho was on his other side, knee hooked over Mingi’s thigh in his sleep, blankets pulled up around his chest.

He’d never had trouble sharing space like that. Especially not with Wooyoung--after all, the two had known each other long enough that he still had memories of his mother putting them in the bath together when they got dirty, letting them hose each other down after an afternoon of play out in the mud. The two of them had been sleeping over in each others’ beds since they were children. And with the rest of the guys, he’d once shared two mattresses spread out on the floor of the warehouse when Yeosang was hiding from his parents and needed somewhere to stay.

Wooyoung stirred. He sat up, eyes still half-closed, his arm a shield from the light.

Something knocked at their door.

That was right. Someone had knocked once already--that’s what had woken Mingi up in the first place. Someone wanted them. For something. Whatever. It was too early. He closed his eyes again. 

He felt the blankets shift as Jongho pulled them even closer around his face. The knocker persisted. The mattress shifted, and the floorboards creaked, the deadbolt lock on the door slid out of place, followed by the chain.

Mingi accepted that he was going to have to sit up. And open his eyes. In whatever order. He yawned, then caught himself when he saw who was at the door.

“Seems like hyung paid Hakim a lot of hush money, then,” Wooyoung said, voice lowered. Yeosang nodded.

“I can be persuasive, though. Give me another day or two and I’ll be able to confirm where the rest of her is. So far it seems like most of her wood was sent to be processed as scrap materials, so I was able to pay off the workers to get the important parts back. I suspect he’s keeping most of our mechanical tech to study.”

“Which would explain why shit kept breaking for no reason.”

“Exactly.”

Mingi always felt awestruck around Yeosang--god, he was so smart. Too good at too many things, and even when they’d found Mingi after getting off the boat, supposedly having lacked running water for almost a week, he still managed to look good. It was unfair. All the nice things that money could buy.

“Anyway—” Yeosang reached into his bag and produced several broken panels of wood. The ones that, put together, made a map of the places that they had been, what they’d managed to figure out so far. “I got this. Hyung will want this once he finally swallows his pride and comes begging for us back. Look after it.” He handed Wooyoung the map. As he did so, his eyes met Mingi’s. Just for a second. He looked away too quickly, no greeting.

Mingi pulled himself up from bed and cleared his throat. “Yeosang, I’m sorry about the tomb raiding thing.”

Yeosang looked back at him and raised an eyebrow. “What? Oh, that. I’d forgotten, actually. It feels like a long time ago.”

Wooyoung nodded. “A week and a bit.”

“Oh,” Yeosang said, “then it feels like exactly the amount of time ago that it was.”

“Mingi, you’re stupid.” Mingi jumped. He hadn’t realised Jongho was awake. “Anyway, why couldn’t Hongjoong-hyung have just got Yeosang-hyung to give the Zaya a makeover.”

“Because he thinks we’re children,” Wooyoung said, “who get spooked by the smallest things. I still think he deserves a mutiny.”

“Seconded,” Jongho said. What the hell had happened that day that Jongho got injured? 

“Anyway, I need to get going. I don’t need San finding me and feeding back to Yunho on my whereabouts. I’ll see you.”

“Have fun, hyung.” Jongho slumped back in bed.

Mingi wavered a second. “Good luck,” he called after Yeosang. He got a quick wave in response.

“So, so stupid,” Jongho said.

* * *

In the last week, Yeosang had gotten used to travelling alone. He’d follow the same routine every time; load up the few possessions he kept with him into the back of a stolen, hot-wired dirt-bike, take off in the direction of wherever he needed to be next. The bike kicked up a lot of sand and a lot of heat, but that was part of the price he paid for quick transport.

Travelling by land, he reached Hakim’s boathouse by sundown.

Yeosang abandoned the bike on the outskirts of the town--all he needed for this was his tools, and he could find other transport to get back. If he made it back. As he made his way through the quieting streets, he thought about how Hongjoong had explained that this had been around where he had first met their commissioner. Yeosang bit his lip. If he ran into the same individual, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to play it off in the same way that his hyung presumably must’ve to have made it out unscathed--there was no denying that that person was scary and, for how little they spoke, their familiar voice had chilled every inch of his core.

The water, ink-dark in the low light, lapped gently against the side of the building when he arrived. Yeosang pulled his scarf closer around his face; he doubted he’d be recognised if anyone was even around to catch sight of him, but it was still better not to take the risk.

There was a side door down to the actual workshop--Yeosang had noticed it during his last visit. It unlocked easily with a little work from his tools. How many times had he done this before? Too many now to count? At first it had been an innocent hobby, just so that he could get back into his locker when he forgot the key, but then, as with most parts of his life, circumstances had changed.

The door creaked a little as it opened up to a workshop. Yeosang flicked the lightswitch on. Normal stuff, work benches, wood, clamps and saws--different motor varieties, diagrams pinned up on the walls. Right next to the door was the alarm, with the panel and number pad--everything you’d expect. And beneath was a blank metal box, secured to the wall. Yeosang crouched, careful not to cross the alarm threshold and made quick work of the lock on that one, too. Inside, the wires were easy enough to untangle and snip. The green glow of the number pad screen died.

Well, that ensured that Hakim would get his insurance payout.

Yeosang stepped down into the workshop. Parts of the Zaya’s old water and electric system were stacked up in the corner. He made quick work of extracting the parts that he needed--the neat little connections that held the whole thing together, kept their systems from falling apart entirely; the parts that Hakim had apparently overlooked--and grabbed the heaviest looking piece of piping he could find.

“Sorry, Zaya,” he whispered, then brought it down heavy on the mess of disconnected pipes. He hit the nest over and over, until his ears rang with the sound of metal on metal, until his handiwork had been reduced to little more than a pile of scrap in front of him, his hands sore from grasping onto the pipe.

“Hey!”

Yeosang froze. The noise. That must’ve drawn someone’s attention. Hakim stood in the doorway, staring. He didn’t have much time; he still had the advantage of being armed. Yeosang charged at the stairs, hitting the mechanic in the shin hard enough that he heard a sickening crack--Hakim cried out and collapsed. Yeosang could’ve thrown up, but he couldn’t waste any time. He grabbed the side of the door frame and launched himself over Hakim’s crumpled form, then ran.

God, he was lucky it was dark. And God, he was lucky he’d never removed the covering from his face. The streets passed by in a blur--he chose pathways at random. To him, there were no dead-ends, only changes in elevation.

It was almost like flying, or like sailing on good headwinds. If he wasn’t pumped full of adrenaline, numbed to any emotion, to any ache that might plague his muscles, he might savour the feeling of running through the pleasant cool of the night, generating his own heat.

But dirt pavements turned to stone docks, and then to wooden piers. He leapt the distance between the rope tying a motorboat to its place and the deck, hands just catching the edge as he landed, half in the water.

He was vaguely aware of distant shouting, that there were people who would’ve seen him do that. Instead, he focused on pulling himself up, soaking, onto the boat and untying the rope. With a few kicks in the water, the vehicle had floated far enough away from the pier that no one could reel him back in, but he’d need to get the engine started. He yanked the pull cord. The engine puttered, but didn’t start.

More shouts. The police were getting closer with each second

He pulled the cord again. Nothing.

“Come on, come on.”

He gave the engine a sharp whack to the side, then took a deep breath and pulled the cord again. This time, the engine roared into action, the boat starting forward with a jolt. He cried out in triumph.

Freedom.

* * *

“Why?”

That was all he got when seven out of the eight of them were back together. _Why?_ The question came from Jongho, sitting at the far end of the table. Wooyoung had made it clear when he’d boarded with Mingi and Jongho that they were back not because they forgave him, but despite the fact that they hadn’t. God, Wooyoung’s gaze was broken glass when he looked at him, but he couldn’t rush that healing process. He couldn’t force Wooyoung to forgive him; he had to make that decision for himself.

Hongjoong just had to do the right thing.

“You were tired and stressed, and I didn’t want to give you all one more thing to worry about. I misjudged you all,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

“So there’s really no bigger reason?” Jongho scrunched up his nose.

Hongjoong shook his head. “That’s it.”

“Hyungs are always dumb,” Jongho said, and Hongjoong had to bite his tongue. How could he even argue against that?

“Great.” Wooyoung leant forward against the table. “So what do we do now?”

“Well, the job’s off,” Hongjoong said. The corners of Seonghwa’s mouth twitched at that--smug bastard. Not that he hadn’t earned it, but Hongjoong had always been stubborn. “But Yunho and I came up with a theory while we were bored around here and trying to figure out where the rest of you were.” He nodded to Yunho, who stood and pulled the chalkboard forward.

He’d scrawled a quick map of the town onto it earlier. Yunho marked the tomb. “Here’s where we found the smugglers’ treasure and Seonghwa-hyung found his--ah--I’ll say ‘relic’--” he marked another spot a little way over— “and here was more treasure, as well as Hongjoong-hyung’s relic.”

Hongjoong walked over and took the chalk from Yunho, then drew a circle around the two marks. “We searched this entire area to see if there was anything else, but to no avail. I think the chests were originally all buried here—” he tapped the spot where they dug up his wallet— “but one of them was moved by tectonic activity.”

“Where are you going with this?” Seonghwa raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, see, why would the smugglers have items that once belonged to us among their hoard?”

“They stole them?” San asked, cocking his head to the side.

Seonghwa’s eyes widened. “They _are_ us.” He stared at the bracelet that hung around his wrist.

“Another version of us,” Hongjoong said. 

“Oh, oh, question!” San raised his hand.

Hongjoong pointed at him. “Sannie.”

“How come you and Seonghwa-hyung got a cool relic but the rest of us didn’t?”

“That’s the thing,” Hongjoong said, “I think the rest of you _do,_ but I don’t necessarily think all of it was hidden in the same place, or even at the same time.”

“Eight relics, for eight of us,” Yunho said. Yeosang’s absence was conspicuous. “Which were probably hidden for a reason, as well as being spread out for a reason--since this guy who gave us the job seemed pretty keen to get his hands on just one.”

“Why—”

Something heavy hit the deck. The fuck? They were out floating in the middle of a river--it should be almost impossible to get anything onboard. Yunho laughed, the nerves clear in the crack of his voice. “What was that?”

“Are—”

Another thud. “We’re being boarded.” Hongjoong narrowed his eyes. They must’ve boarded so many ships in their time on the sea, but this was the first time it had happened to them. Of course it had to happen when they were one member short. 

“What do we do?” Seonghwa stood up.

Hongjoong bit his lip. They had two options. Put up a fight or hide and pretend the ship was abandoned, then take out whoever was there when they had their guard down.

San grabbed a bow--something they’d picked up once, never thinking they’d actually need it.

Right, right. They had long range weapons. “Yunho, pick up San.”

“What?”

“Mingi, help him, carry him on your shoulders if you can. Seonghwa, on my mark you throw open the hatch. San, you’ll fire, got it?”

“Got it.”

“Go on then.” He watched as they scrambled to get into position. His calculations were right, San had to hunch down just a bit to avoid hitting the ceiling once lifted up. Once the hatch was open, he should be able to see the boarders without being too exposed. “Seonghwa, now.”

Seonghwa slammed the hatch with the post, breaking the latch clean off. San fired. Then squirmed, grabbing at the ladder, nearly kicking Yunho and Mingi in the chest.

“What the hell?” Someone--an extremely familiar someone--yelled from above deck.

“Yeosang?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also wow! The penultimate chapter! We're nearly done with this installment, folks! Once I finish off this one, I'm planning to write some quick, more speculative spinoff oneshots before I get started on ep.2, but once I do I'm excited to get back into this universe and to explore more of the sci-fi/fantasy sides of the genre. Hope you liked this one!


	7. Where To, Captain?

Yeosang sat with them, freshly caught up, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of cocoa (sprinkled with cinnamon) courtesy of his attacker--San felt bad. He’d missed, yes, luckily. He’d never actually shot a bow and arrow before--their mast, now freshly scratched was a testament to that fact.

“I expected you to be surprised,” he said, pouting. “I didn’t expect you to shoot at me.”

“Sorry,” San said again. He patted Yeosang on the back.

Hongjoong sat at the other end of the table, head in his hands. “Could you maybe have announced yourself before I told San to fire?”

“Hey--I got shot at. Don’t victim-blame me.”

“Sorry.” Hongjoong straightened up, eyes shifting. The one benefit of their captain being in the dog house was that they could probably get away with a lot more than they ever could before just by making puppy eyes and saying something sentimental about how badly betrayed they’d been by him.

Oh! And that was right, Hongjoong _had_ given the order.

“I was just doing what hyung told me to,” San said, stroking Yeosang’s hair. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you, Sannie, it’s not your fault.”

“Are you kidding?” Hongjoong stared at him. San played innocent.

“What?”

Hongjoong shook his head. “Anyway, Yeosang, where were you?”

“Well, hyung, in addition to it generally being an act of betrayal to go behind our backs to get the Zaya made over, it was also really dumb, because some of our systems only work because of modifications I made to them. ” Yeosang reached down and pulled a satchel up from the ground, then proceeded to dump the contents out onto the table--a series of bolts, connectors, panels--all sorts of things. San picked up one of the connectors--a small copper ring. It looked simple enough, but knowing Yeosang, it was only a small component of a much more complex system.

“See,” Yeosang continued, “your mechanic replaced basically the entire outer shell of the Zaya, which included taking this stuff off. But this stuff happens to be important, so things kept breaking down for no reason, see?” He held up another copper ring and stared at their hyung through it.

“You were getting these back?” Yunho said, picking up a panel and holding it up to the light. Yeosang nodded.

“Even if you didn’t want anyone to worry, I’m the _mechanic,”_ Yeosang folded his arms. “I was mad because you destroyed Zaya, but then, after that, I was mad because it meant I had so much work to do to fix your mistake.”

Hongjoong seemed entirely too focused on the wall.

San rested his head on Yeosang’s shoulder, softening as Yeosang wrapped an arm around him. “Why did you hide from me, though?”

“Hm? Oh, I didn’t want hyung to take for granted that I was gonna come back.”

“Well, now that we’re all here, shouldn’t we figure out what our next move is?” Mingi leant forward. “If the rest of us have relics, we should try and find them.” San would’ve nodded if he wasn’t so comfortable nestled against Yeosang’s shoulder. 

“I’m curious of what mine could even be,” Wooyoung said.

“Same here.” Jongho raised his hand. “Also, do you think they’re all small like that, or they could be bigger items, too?”

“I don’t know,” Hongjoong said. “Really, everything at the moment is just a best guess.”

“Then we need to find out more.” Seonghwa rest his chin on his hand. “Did you go through everything on the USB?”

Hongjoong nodded. “That trail ended at the library.”

“I could go back and look around,” San offered. Not that he thought there would be much merit in returning--all the other information there was either in languages that they couldn’t understand, or just rewordings of things that they’d probably already deciphered and put together. Seonghwa shook his head.

“I have a better idea.” He removed the bracelet from his wrist and set it down on the table. San widened his eyes. “We pretend to play along, give this person what they want, get them to give up as much information as possible, then we leave.”

“Leave, or like,” San lowered his voice, even though he knew everyone in the room could still hear him, “ _leave_ leave.”

“ _Leave_ leave.” 

“Oh.” San sat up straight. It had been a while since anyone had suggested they _leave._ Like, for real.

“We only have three days until the full moon.” Yunho frowned. “Is this a good idea?”

Yeosang sighed. “I’ll get to work.”

“Hang on.” Hongjoong held up a hand. “Seonghwa, you know we might not be able to return again?”

“Do we have to have this conversation every single time?”

Hongjoong shut his mouth. Yeosang stood up. “I’m going to get to work, then. If we want a functional ship in time for our journey.”

San got up after him. “I’ll help out.”

* * *

The moon rose early in the evening as the eight of them--all eight this time--made their way to the meeting point. The highest point, of the landscape, where a ruined lookout tower stood. The dirt crunched beneath their feet, and Hongjoong certainly didn’t appreciate the sensation of sweat building on his forehead from the effort, but they wanted the vantage point. If they could see down to the river where Zaya was, they could see that she was fine.

Plus, running away downhill was easier.

Mingi nudged him in the shoulder. “You really think we can get this guy to spill?”

Hongjoong shrugged. “I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like the talkative type, but it’s always worth a try, right?”

“Good thing I made sure we have a quick escape ready, then, right?” Mingi laughed. Hongjoong thought back to the Cromer, the hourglass that currently sat, waiting for their return on board, right where the moonlight would hit it. They still hadn’t quite figured out the pattern for navigation, or how exactly to control where they landed, but they got better with each flip they made. He still hadn’t thought of where he wanted to go--not that he could ever be too specific--the thing had a will of its own.

He swallowed as they reached the top. If there was a time and a place for fear and self-doubt, then this wasn’t it; if there was a time and a place to be anything but confident in himself and his silver tongue, it was elsewhere. He gestured his crew forwards.

“Right, let’s go.”

They found that person was already there, waiting for them, hidden around the corner of the round, just out of their immediate line of site. He really shouldn’t have been surprised. They were always going to appear in the creepiest way possible, and they were always going to keep themselves in the shadows, hidden from his crew. Hongjoong made a show of yawning. “God, that trek exhausted me, it’s good the things you wanted this time were small, or I’m not sure I could’ve made it.” They didn’t reply, but he didn’t expect them to. “Oh, I know you’re not the talkative type,” he spoke directly to the silhouette between two broken walls, “but maybe this will lift your spirits.” He lifted Seonghwa’s bracelet from his pocket, and spun it around on his finger.

They didn’t move, which was a little disappointing, but not exactly unexpected. Honestly, even if Hongjoong couldn't get them to slip and reveal some sort of dark secret, it would be just as worth it to get a glimpse of their face, to tempt them out of the shadows for once.

“I do have one question, though,” he said, slipping the relic back into his pocket. “How is something like this worth more than a hoard that’s worth--well--millions in today's money, if I had to guess.”

“Billions even,” Mingi offered. Hongjoong nodded.

“Seems like a waste to turn that down in exchange for something like this.”

Again, no response, but he sensed the figure shift their position where they stood. He imagined them trying to get a better look at him, finally understanding that he was smart, too--two could play at this game. Hongjoong took a step forward.

“Hm. Nothing to say?” He plucked the bangle back out from his pocket, then held it out to the figure. “Well, it’s yours.” They reached out to take it, as expected, and he plucked his hand back, just out of their reach. “On my terms. Give one of us our reward first. Give me mine, then I’ll hand it over. I promise.”

“Not the deal.”

“I’m a pirate,” Hongjoong said. “And I have a feeling that you are, too. The greatest thing I can dream of right now is an explanation as to why one of my crewmate’s possessions was buried in a desert tomb, and why you, specifically, were looking for it.” He smirked, then made a show of rummaging around in his clothes before producing his own relic. “Oh! And why was this out there, too? You’re probably looking for this as well, right?”

He held the wallet by one end, let it dangle so that it fell open to the photograph, perfectly preserved within. “I used to have one exactly like this. The thing is--mine was destroyed years ago, so imagine my surprise when I dug this up. And, really, what possible use could this be to you? Any ideas?”

Seonghwa rested his arms on Hongjoong’s shoulders, reaching forward to take the bracelet from his hand so that he could hold it up to the moonlight. “Maybe they’re a creep who’s obsessed with us,” he said, almost a whisper. God, even Hongjoong had to hold back a shudder at his tone. Seonghwa could be absolutely fucking terrifying when he wanted to be. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Hongjoong risked a glance to look at his friend, saw his eyes narrowed and cold as they regarded the obscured buyer in the ruins. Seonghwa let go, slipped the bracelet back around his wrist.

“Was this a trap just to kidnap us?” Hongjoong asked. “It won’t work. You underestimate us. But, no, I don’t think that’s it, is it?” He looked back to the figure.

“They clearly know who we are,” Yeosang said. “Authorities, perhaps, but I’d criticise your methods if you were wasting this many resources to create a treasure hunt.”

“No, there’s something deeper at play here.” Hongjoong snapped the wallet shut. “The last time I saw _this_ thing in _this_ condition was moments before our first, ah, road trip.” He smiled. “Are you trying to send us back to where we came from? Do we, perhaps, have some unfinished business? Which is it? Oh, and I’d also like to know, which of us were the ones who buried the treasure, hm? I suppose you must have at least some idea, if you knew it wasn’t just a story.”

The shadow in the darkness shifted again. Hongjoong’s stomach turned--had he overdone it? If it came to it, would he freeze before he could flee? “You are headed toward ruin,” they said.

Hongjoong laughed and gestured for his crew to leave.

“We’ve been doing that for a long time already.”

He turned to make his exit but--just as he did, he thought, just for a moment, that he saw in the corner of his eye a flash of black.

* * *

The cromer sat, obedient on the deck of the Zaya. When Mingi laid his hand on its surface, he could feel the charge--almost like electricity just..smoother. It was excited, ready. It had been ready for a while. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that the thing was alive--at least in part--that it had a soul, that it thought for itself (or that it played host to something that did); that didn’t change the strangeness of the sensation.

The other seven stood in a circle around him. It wasn’t necessary--not as far as they could tell--but they always felt drawn to the cromer whenever someone else was about to use it. No one had ever been able to flip the glass in secret. It was a gesture that was communicated from soul to soul--everyone onboard the ship would just _know._

He looked up. The moonlight reflected off of the glass and into Hongjoong’s eyes as he stood across from him.

“Where to, captain?”

“Wherever the treasure is,” he said.

And Mingi flipped the hourglass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, close the curtains, end scene, cut!!! I have a couple of oneshots planned for the in-between times but with any luck it shouldn't be too long before I'm working on our next chapter fic. I really hope you enjoyed this ride, and I'm glad to have finished it in a prompt and timely manner instead of having an indefinite hiatus like some of my other works (I definitely know now that I need to have a plan before I start writing). I hope you enjoyed, and please stay tuned if you enjoy this universe and want to see more! I'll be making a series that you can follow!


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